Gold mining shares have been hit with just about everything imaginable during the past couple of months; lets recap some of the ‘bad news’: US economic data continues to impress with a blowout jobs report last week Large declines in commodities across the board The consensus is that the Fed will begin hiking rates next… Continue Reading

The CFTC Commitments of Traders data which came out yesterday showed a couple of surprising things: Speculators (both large and small) aggressively covered short positions while the commercials drastically reduced longs resulting in a significant drop in open interest. This behavior was likely due largely to Monday’s huge upside reversal following Sunday night’s commodity futures bloodbath… Continue Reading

With the gold price waffling near $1,200/ounce, close to the ‘fully loaded’ cost for many gold producers (Dundee’s definition of fully loaded cost = the sum of Total Cash Costs (incl. royalties) plus, cash G&A, exploration, cash taxes, cash interest and true sustaining capital costs), the #1 topic of conversation among gold mining investors & analysts are costs.… Continue Reading

After a relatively placid afternoon of oscillating in the $19.70-$19.90 range the #1 trading vehicle for gold producers, the GDX, experienced a ‘flash crash’ during the final minute of today’s trading session: Click to enlarge 5 million shares traded during the final minute of today’s session which included 1.25 million shares during a 2-second burst… Continue Reading

The gold miners as represented by the GDX have seen some noteworthy technical developments recently: Despite the hugely bearish sentiment swing in the commodities complex, primarily due to Thursday’s OPEC meeting and the subsequent crash in crude oil, neither gold nor the miners made new lows Friday’s holiday shortened session had all the characteristics of a… Continue Reading

If the Sunday night futures market was to be given a movie title it would have been dubbed the “Commodity Catastrophe”; we saw WTI crude futures fall below $64/barrel, silver traded with a 14 handle ($14.43 low), and copper fell into the $2.70s. Thus far this morning we are witnessing a bevy of “V-bottoms” across… Continue Reading

After a very rough couple of months for the miners, November has treated the sector quite well with a 24% rally from the early November low: Despite the fact that GDX has rallied 24% in the past 3 weeks the easy part is over. A snapback rally from a capitulation sell-off is par for the… Continue Reading

From Stock Trader’s Almanac: “Gold prices tend to move up prior to the holidays, and the trend has worked especially well over the last 14 years. Seasonally speaking, it is best for traders to go long on or about November 19 and hold until about December 4…..” What’s most interesting about this gold seasonality analysis… Continue Reading

After the Toronto Stock Exchange rang the closing bell today, Ivanhoe Mines (IVN.TSX) announced they were resuming development work on Platreef, their 75.7 million ounce (Indicated + Inferred) platinum-gold-nickel-copper project in South Africa. The company says it has sent out formal notifications to provincial authorities and landowners to return to work.   They have begun moving the required plant and… Continue Reading

From Reuters: “Copper prices dipped on Tuesday, as disappointing property sector data from China raised concerns about the outlook for demand from the world’s top metals consumer.” Copper has been oscillating near the $3 mark for well over a month now and speculators (both large & small) have continued to pile on bearish bets: This… Continue Reading

Today was an important day for the gold miners for a number of reasons: GDX broke above the downtrend which began in early September All the large one day rallies in the past few months have been immediately met with selling the following day, today’s action represents a change of character The miners were up… Continue Reading

During the past 18 months we have seen a massive shift in holders of gold. The following 3 charts tell the story quite well: Click to enlarge Retail investors and portfolio managers have dumped more than 1,000 tonnes of gold from gold exchange traded funds during the last two years. Meanwhile central banks have purchased… Continue Reading

Last weekend we pointed out the importance of the week ahead for gold. After a tumultuous start to the week gold found its footing in a big way on Friday and closed the week in impressive fashion: Click to enlarge After posting a series of higher lows gold surged above previous support at $1180 on… Continue Reading

In a shocking move, the world’s largest producer of thermal coal, Glencore (GLEN.LON), announced yesterday that it will shut down its Australian coal operations for three weeks starting in mid-December. An estimated 5 million tonnes of output (roughly 6% of Glencore’s annual Australian coal output) will be cut from the markets as a result. Seaborne thermal-coal prices remain at… Continue Reading

The monthly chart  of USD/JPY (US dollar in Japanese yen terms or ¥ per $) illustrates a massive bear market (bull market in yen) which began in 1998 and ended during the 2nd half of 2011: Click to enlarge Given that USD/JPY is referring to the Japanese yen price of the US dollar, rises in USD/JPY mean… Continue Reading