[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTg5h_zMYaw 450 300]

Can Early Favorite Orb pull a “Big Brown” and win from the far outside post position?

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My apologies for not ringing in this week, but Derby Week is like Mardi Gras down here and I’ve a lot of responsibilities. Many of them include chaperoning Large Net Worths around, paying close attention to their words of wisdom, and occasionally matching them bourbon for bourbon, deep into the evening.

Gold an silver seem to be hanging in reasonably well, here, and $1,450 seems to be holding well. That’s a level to keep your eye on. In the meantime, I like AUY, NEM, AEM, and of course SLW and RGLD. All on sale now.

As for the Derby itself, I have to admit a certain loyalty to Rick Pitino’s magic horse, Goldencents, which, donning Kevin Ware’s #5 at Santa Anita, scorched the pack for the highest Beyer speed rating of any of the Derby preliminaries (105).  Nobody else came even close to that in the Derby prelims, which lends the cold credibility.

I also like Normandy Invasion, and not just for the cool, retro-WWII name.  I liked the way Normandy was making good time to almost overtake Verrazano in the Wood Memorial at New York’s Aqueduct Racetrack last month.  That race was a mile and an eighth.  I think with the extra 1/8 of a mile left in the Derby, Normandy should be sitting pretty.

Last I like the big winning colt, Orb… caution, this horse will likely be the favorite once all the Louisville Cardinal fans (Pitino’s GoldenCents) and multi-Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel fans (he will ride mud horse favorite Revolutionary) get too drunk to remember to bet by the 11th race.  Orb has done nothing but win, and is coming off a sparkling win in the Florida Derby.  The problem with this horse is it’s coming off the 19th hole, which has been a traditionally tough place to win from.  Big Brown, however, won from #20 position in 2008 (see above) so anything is possible if you have a super horse.  The question remains… is Orb enough of a Super Horse to win it?

Tune in tomorrow evening at around 6 pm on NBC!  Look for me hanging off one of the balconies, hopefully not by one of my more delicate extremities.

Best to you all, and happy happy Derby!

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The 1,350 to $1,400 area is going to be important here.   We banged against $1,400 a couple of times over the past two days and were not able to surpass it until this  early this morning, when we had a quick break and then a jet to over $1,420.  There was a lot of selling into that break, and so a retest of $1,400 will be increasingly important to see if this will be a failed bear flag or an actual recovery from the recent oversold condition. 

We are as of this writing, trading at $1,407.

There is a possibility that we could snap back extremely hard on this recent down-plunge.  There are stories all over the internet about large physical purchasing going on.  This could be anecdotal (well, it IS anecdotal), or it could reflect the difference between the paper and physical markets.   If the last couple of days action was a desperate move to combat an imminent physical delivery problem (as some have speculated), we could see a torching of the shorts like none have encountered since early 2009.   Stay vigilant and nimble here.

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vtWB4owdE 450 300]

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I don’t need to tell any of you who were paying attention about Friday’s crater job on the precious.  Coming about on the Friday before options expiration week, at at the end of a long and dreary down cycle, it certainly looked nicely timed to shake the trees loose of many golden and silver ducats.  Friday was a nice day to make that first physical purchase and tomorrow morning may be even better as a result of the follow through.

I’m holding on to what I’ve got for the almost inevitable mean reversion play here.  The precious miner bullish percentage index (“$BPGDM“) is at absolute ZERO.  The last time we hit zero on that scale was in December of ’08, at the very nadir of the financial meltdown.  What’s more the Hulbert gold sentiment rating is off the chart completely (yes, below -20, otherwise known as “uncharted territory.”)  We lost another $50 tonight before the rebound, and we could even see $1400 tomorrow.  Is this the time to give up the ghost?  No, it’s blood in the streets time.   You know what Mr. Rothschild said about the time to be looking to buy, right?  Consider that the Buying on Weakness number for GLD was its highest ever on Friday at $144 mm in block trades.  That’s the big boys out collecting.

The best bet right now is physical, and or waiting for the turn, with wariness and apt cunning.  Fly got some AG on Friday, and while he may have been a touch early, I think he’s got the right idea.  The fast flyers will rebound 20+% when this plunge is over.  I also like the fat dividend alpha males like AEM and NEM here… they too have been beaten down over-harshly.

Hang on, folks, we’ve been through these before.

Best to you all.

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Everything’s relative, I guess, including pain.  Today’s revisit to the recent lows (and no, we’re not there yet) is not as painful as, say — a bloody compound tibial fracture jutting messily out of one’s shin.  That said, it sure has been a frustrating six months, hasn’t it?   And yet, if you look at all the major charts, it looks like at this late point in the cycle, the worst we are going to get is a revisit to the end of February lows, which — not insignificantly– were at the 200-week exponential moving averages for most gold and silver stocks.  Royal Gold (RGLD) is still my favorite here, but you’d have to be crazy not to take advantage of the yielding plays available through NEM, AEM, and even ABX — and those are large caps you’d never see me recommending in a “normal” market.

But this isn’t normal.  There’s a concerted, global (read Big 8) effort to devalue currencies — and therefore reprice debt — the world over.  The only way those central banks can get away with this kind of routine, and save their debauched systems, is to get it done under cover of a “deflationary” scenario.  The easiest path to that is to keep their foot on the less liquid large commodity and precious metal markets.   This whole American Earl Revolution is a God-send to the central bankers, because it’s bringing supply on line in a period of global currency inflation.  Ask yourself why oil prices have remained so stubbornly high, however, despite the onlining of so much new supply in the world’s greatest petroleum consumer.

How much longer can this kind of thing go on? Until the little guy cries “uncle” as loud as Soc Gen just did?  Given that I was expecting a retest, and the large volume bars we saw at the late February lows, I am thinking this week and maybe the next will be the final washout.  I’m still holding tight to my remaining cash, however.  Like in late February of 2009, I don’t expect these prices to hang around for very long once the next cycle takes flight.   That said, I think there will be ample time to take part once the bull trend resumes.

Best to you all, and Go Cards!

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PS — this retrace is also an excellent time to buy some physical, if you’ve been holding off, including 100 oz silver bars and nice liquid gold coins like Maple Leafs or Eagles.
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Get ye some vampire gold!

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Time and time again, I’ve stood here and recounted the reasons why I stay away from the large cap gold miners like AEM, ABX, NEM and even GG (though I do own a little of this one from the Wheaton Gold days).    Sure, these are all fine old girls, but they often end up on the wrong side of an acquisition play which then ends up trashing their stock price in a volatile gold market.

That means these big hulks are generally buyers, for the most part, as their management team has little to do but acquire more assets in order to expand away from relatively diversified and well known properties.  They need new territories, fresh blood, new meat; and the highest percentage way to continue drilling on profitable properties is to acquire them from juniors who have done the sweat work to seek them out.

Well, it seems my lonely EGO has gotten all egotistical on me and wants to be a “playah” like the big boys.  No more holding it’s hand out as trade bait for the majors, Eldorado Gold is officially leaving the middle-market gold mining community in its dust and going gold speculating in Turkey, Greece and Romania.  

Yes, you got that right.   They’re offering $2.5 bn of their own stock in order to buy a company (European Goldfields) that is looking for gold in respectively, the next Islamofascist hot spot, the First Beggar of Europe, and oh yeah, a place known for producing pickpocketing gymnasts with facial hair and night dwelling blood suckers without.

That should work out well, fellahs.   Probably very little nationalization risk you’ve paid for there….

In any case, these M&A purges usually overdo themselves, so my beaten down EGO is probably a good pickup here tomorrow morning after what I expect will be a final washout.   There’s support at $12, but I’m not sure we’ll get that far.  Nevertheless,  I’ll place my bets in that area, hoping to catch a bounce.

Oh, and I think everything else will bounce as well.  Most especially earl and gold.  So tomorrow, if I get my flush, I’m going to throw down for some NUGT and for some ERX.

Don’t worry, my stops will be tight.   I’m not a masochist, after all.

Best to you all.

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You bring the dough, I’ll crank me goooolden pasta machine.
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Have you just arrived at my blog after visiting the site of M. Le Docteur de Le Fly? Did you watch that video with the eerily calm-voiced man who is sketching our collective doom via Youtube videation?   Are you now in need of a mug of chamomile tea in order to calm your nerves?

Well, goodness knows, there’s other comfort foods available for your consumption, including Jake’s yummy pasta.  Remember this [[AIPC]] name from the other day’s post “Pennies for Pennes?”    Here was the original chart from 10 days ago:

And here was Friday’s close — a mere week later: 

Keep in mind, that’s a launch off support in one of the worst week and halves of trading we’ve had in 15 months.  Admit it, you didn’t touch this stock, because you thought maybe I was nuts, offering Italian carbohydrates whilst the Greeks burned the Parthenon down.   But you must keep in mind that trending stocks that display relative strength in bad markets are generally some of the safest names you can own in a storm.   

I think [[AIPC]] may take a rest/hit tomorrow, and it may be a good time to scoop some up.  Don’t wait too long, however.  There’s someone after this one, I think, and he’s/she’s/they’re no piker.

Speaking of strength in the storm, let’s not forget that [[GLD]] and [[SLV]] have been acting very cheery in the face of this Eurotardation, much to the chagrin of Mr. Samsonite Hamburg-ALL-er and his boss, a Mr. The Devil Dog.    What’s more, even the miners, which tend to wane in sympathy with the overall markets, are showing strength.  

If you watched M. le Docteur’s scary video, you may find the answer therein.  Me, I’m not going to invest in reverse-Oliver Stone type fright films, but I do know a trend when I see one.    As you can see, my plan remains the same, and so does my target for the Amex Gold Bugs Index [[HUI]] :

I like what I’ve been liking for months now, but I may not have mentioned them all, so here are some look sees:

Gold miners (Large): Goldcorp Inc. (USA) [[GG]] , Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) [[AUY]] , Newmont Mining Corporation [[NEM]] , and [[GDX]] for the grouping

Gold miners (Medium): Allied Nevada Gold Corp. [[ANV]] , Eldorado Gold Corporation (USA) [[EGO]] , IAMGOLD Corporation (USA) [[IAG]] , Gammon Gold, Inc. [[GRS]]

Gold miners (Small); Golden Star Resources Ltd. (USA) [[GSS]] , NovaGold Resources Inc. (USA) [[NG]] , New Gold Inc. (USA) [[NGD]] , Northgate Minerals Corporation (USA) [[NXG]] , [[BAA]] , Rubicon Minerals Corp. (USA) [[RBY]] , Exeter Resource Corp. [[XRA]] , Taseko Mines Limited (USA) [[TGB]] and the catch all [[GDXJ]]

Silver miners: [[PAAS]] , [[CDE]] , Silver Standard Resources Inc. (USA) [[SSRI]] , Hecla Mining Company [[HL]] , [[EXK]] , [[MVG]] , [[SVM]] ,  and the catch all Apex Silver Mines Limited [[SIL]] .

Royalty plays:  Royal Gold, Inc. [[RGLD]] and Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corp. (US) [[TRE]] for gold, and my baby Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] for silver.

Best of the litter — Silver Wheaton Corp. (USA) [[SLW]] and [[PAAS]] for silver exposure, then Royal Gold, Inc. [[RGLD]] and [[GDX]] for gold glamour (sic).

Best to you all, have a nosh of rotini, get some sleep and do not let the Samsonite Hambug-ALL-ers bite!

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