After yesterday’s ugly session it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that gold would knife through the $1180 level, an area of support which it has tested on 3 different occasions since June 2013. As is often the case the breakdown took place in the early morning hours New York time: Gold is currently fumbling… Continue Reading

Gold stocks were hammered today with many senior producers falling by more than 5%. Barrick Gold (ABX), the world’s largest gold miner, was particularly hard hit; its shares reached levels not seen since 2003 when gold was $330/ounce and copper was below $1/pound: Click to enlarge This chart is truly remarkable. It tells a story… Continue Reading

Total assets in gold exchange traded products reached fresh 5-year lows last week: Click to enlarge In addition, total assets in the Rydex Precious Metals Fund (an excellent gauge of retail investor sentiment) reached 12-year lows yesterday as investors continue to flee the space in disgust: It is interesting to note that as funds continue to… Continue Reading

The bear market in gold stocks continues with many of the more notable names hitting 52 week lows during the past few days. Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer (Barrick Gold: ABX.T) hit a low of $14.80, down from $55 just three years ago. Gold equities have been extremely volatile in the past year, creating… Continue Reading

Here are the 5 things that you might see near a market top: 1. Commodities rolling over CRB Index   2. Deteriorating market breadth with leadership sectors (energy, financials, and technology) getting hit especially hard S&P 500 1-month heat map   3. Volatility and volume expansion S&P 500 daily with average true range below  … Continue Reading

The Lundins focus on Chile is continuing today, this time with more news from portfolio company, NGEx Resources (NGQ:TSX). “Chile’s biggest new copper-gold camp” is posted all over NGEx’s website and the company believes that they not only have large deposits (3 of them to be exact), but that they are sitting on an entire… Continue Reading

An especially brutal round of hedge fund/mutual fund tax loss selling this week (most fund companies have fiscal years that end on October 31st) has sent gold mining shares tumbling to levels not seen since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC): Click to enlarge NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index   Gold shares have performed poorly since… Continue Reading

A relatively unknown European-focused gold developer called Euromax Resources (EOX:TSXV) has a market cap of just $26 million, but yesterday it secured a $175 million streaming deal with the world’s largest gold streamer, Royal Gold. That’s nearly 8x its current market cap. Euromax’s management is made up of most of the former European Goldfields executives who sold that… Continue Reading

In what looks to be a classic example of “first mover advantage’, the billionaire Lundin family is acquiring one of the best gold projects in the world, in the worst market in decades. Lukas Lundin’s Fortress Minerals is acquiring the Fruta del Norte (FDN) gold project in Equador from Kinross Gold for $240 million in cash and stock.  The… Continue Reading

As reported earlier (here), billionaire Swede Lukas Lundin has been in talks with Kinross and the Ecuadorian government for a potential deal on the infamous high-grade gold deposit known as Fruta del Norte. After 5,200 shares traded today, the Lundin Group shell, Fortress Minerals (FST.H:TSXV) was halted pending news. As we speculated earlier, this would… Continue Reading

The opportunity to buy a $1 bill and pay only $0.50 for it was created earlier this year in the shadow of the largest gold M&A deal of the year. The $3.6 billion acquisition of Osisko was announced in April when Goldcorp made a hostile offer for the Canadian gold miner and ultimately saw Agnico-Eagle/Yamana jointly outbid… Continue Reading

I will have a full market summary out on Sunday but for now I found two of this afternoon’s Commitments of Traders (CoT) reports to be quite curious; small speculators have moved to a record short position in gold futures (net short 6,592 contracts for a notional value of roughly $818 million), while total speculative… Continue Reading

Ten days ago before all the recent fun started we penned a piece entitled “2008 Redux?”. The main point of this piece was to highlight the striking similarities between the current market and the lead up to the 2008 market meltdown. Most notably we just witnessed one of the worst months ever (September) for commodities… Continue Reading

With one day left in the month, September is shaping up to be the worst monthly performance for the senior gold miners (both the GDX and HUI are down roughly 18.5% for the month) since the dreadful month of June 2013: Click to enlarge HUI Gold Bugs Index (Monthly) The gold miners are down 5 weeks in… Continue Reading

In 2008, Venezuela’s former President Hugo Chavez nationalized mining and energy assets in a failed attempt to gain control over his struggling economy.  As a result, there are now 28 unresolved cases filed at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) by companies seeking retribution for these actions, including the energy giant Exxon… Continue Reading