Special Update January 2007
1. Analyzing the AMEX Gold Miners Index - A strong buy signal in the Gold market?
2. Don’t forget the Uranium market!
AMEX Gold Miners Index
A strong buy signal in the Gold market?
Once again, the price of Gold shocked the goldbugs. The first trading days in the New Year devastated quite a few goldbugs of the crowd. And once more, the bears in the Gold market see the end of the bull market in the metals.
However, every real market expert can assure you: As long as we have a large number of investors doubting the current bull market, the uptrend is not finished. Only if a lot of investors have the same expectation, the experts begin to worry about a potential change of trend.
Fundamentally, nothing has changed. The demand can only be met with further sales of the National Banks which joined the Washington Agreement. But the first members of this club hesitate to continue with their sales: The German National Bank hasn’t even sold their last year’s quota.
As the price of Gold came under pressure, the mining stocks also corrected over 15% during the first days of January. But from a technical point of view, this correction was a perfect move of a midterm uptrend:
Wave A was perfectly consolidated with a correction exactly back to the 62% Retracement: Wave A from 879.78 to 1149 = 269.22 Points (or 30.6%). The 62%-Retracement of this move is at 983. The low of the correction: 984.19.
The chartists feel even better as the small correction in December 06 and January 07 also confirmed a perfect move after the Elliott Wave Theory: Subwave B can be divided into an “a-b-c-Down wave”, which precisely confirmed the down target of the correction: Wave “a” lasted 106.56 points which saw a short recovery to 1094.94. A potential down target of wave “c” can therefore be calculated at 988.38 (1094.94 – 106.56). This down target confirms the mentioned 62% retracement exactly by only 5 points.
Therefore, there is a high probability that the coming up move with Wave “C” has a potential to reach up to 1257.60 points (269.22 + 984.19). With today’s level of the GDM-Index at 1028.8, this represents a potential of more than 20%. Experienced chartists know that this Wave “C” has the potential to reach the target within a short time!
If we look at the more broadly traced chart indicators, we can also discover that the MACD-Indicator is about to signal a new mid term buy (see chart above). But also our internal indicators reached an oversold level which we last saw in October 2006, shortly before the last up move of 30%.
Don’t forget the Uranium market!
Over the last years Uranium had an unbelievable bull market. With the flooded Cigar Lake Mine of Cameco (October 2006), the very tight supply situation could become even worse. The Cigar Lake Mine should have contributed Uranium of over 15% of the world supply by the year of 2008. This will not be the case now and a replacement is not in sight. On the other hand, many countries will in the medium-term future only be able to fulfil their energy requirements with nuclear energy. During the next decade, the number of nuclear power plants will rise by more than 30% and will therefore also bring a huge increase of demand into the Uranium market, which today already has to handle a huge gap between supply and demand (demand of the existing plants: 190 Mio. pounds, supply 110 Mio. pounds).
Most of the uranium mining companies already enjoyed a very nice uptrend during the last years – especially after the accident at the Cigar Lake Mine. There is more upside potential from the Australian government, which might change their policies concerning the mining of Uranium. The next possible date concerning this important government discussion will be April 2007.
But even before, the support for nuclear energy could get another big boost: climate scientists will publish in February 2007 the newest expectations concerning the greenhouse effect, which will not surprise you anymore: So far, the climate scientists expected that the average global temperature will rise by 1.5 degrees until the year 2100. Some first interviews with relevant scientists stated that this expectation will be increased to 5° C. If it is not possible to stop the greenhouse effect within the next 20 years, the worst case scenario will be unstoppable. It is foreseen that these discussions will not only be supporting the nuclear energy sector. With a rising trend, it will also change the opinion of the opposition of the nuclear energy. The discussion is not about the radioactive waste anymore, which is actually very secure in the mountains. It is a discussion of how to save the planet immediately! Certainly, the nuclear waste is not the best solution, but there is big hope to stop additional nuclear waste with nuclear fusion in about 30 to 40 years. The only alternative solution if you want to avoid further greenhouse effect and nuclear energy: Turn off the light!
Allocation in the Precious Capital Global Mining & Metals Fund:
As of January 16th, the allocation was as follow: Gold 37%, Silver 27%, Uranium 17% and 19% in Base Metals. Between September 1, 2006 and January 15, 2007, the outperformance of the Precious Capital Global Mining & Metals Fund against the XAU Gold Mining-Index is a cumulative 25.8% with only two third of the market volatility.
Hans Peter Schmidlin
CEO Precious Capital AG
Zurich