Precious Metals

UPDATE: Stocks leaking back now, Financials lagging, Utes leading

TSYs are 5-10bps lower in yield (aside from 30Y), ES (and credit) rallying but underperforming on a beta basis to TSY/EUR, EUR stronger at 1.3050 now (USD weaker), and precious metals jumping (Gold back up to $1685).

While Paulson's star was finally setting in 2011, that of mega macro fund Brevan Howard was rising, and has been rising for years by never posting a negative return since 2003. The $34.2 billion fund, now about double the size of John Paulson's, returned 12.12% in a year marked by abysmal hedge fund performance. But how did it make money? Simple - by taking advantage of the same permabullish market myopia that marked the beginning of 2011, and that has gripped the market once again. "The Fund’s large gains during the third quarter were due predominantly to pressing the thematic view that markets were ignoring clear signs of economic slowdown and were not correctly pricing the probability of central bank accommodation, particularly the reversal of the ECB rate hikes in April and July." Not to mention the €800 billion ECB liquidity accommodation that started in July and has continued since. So yes: those betting again that the market correction is overdue, will once again be proven right Why? Because "we are about to witness an unprecedented policy move. In the US, Eurozone and UK, fiscal austerity is being prescribed as the cure following the bursting of the credit bubble and to overcome the malaise following a balance-sheet recession. Unfortunately, there is no historical example of when this approach has been successful." As for looking into the future, "we continue to believe that markets remain at risk of  substantial dislocation."

Where did all the bears go?  We cannot find more than one person willing to be outright bearish.  What is particularly strange is that the reasons most people are bullish seem to have little, if anything to do with fundamentals – either macro or micro.  The reason for being long that is closest to being “fundamental” is that Europe is muddling through.  We're not sure Europe is muddling through, but in any case, wasn’t the bullish case for US stocks that we were decoupling?  Conspicuously absent as a reason to be long is earnings. It seems as though everyone is reasonably long (though not fully committed), but thinks everyone else is underweight.  It really feels like the “consensus” is that everyone else is underweight so you better be long for when that money comes into the market. The conversations are far more bearish than the positioning.

Investors are waiting on the outcome of a 2 day Federal Reserve meeting which ends on Wednesday.  Here they are following any signs that interest rates will remain low, as that could put pressure on the U.S. dollar. The Tokyo Commodity Exchange, December, gold contracts climbed as high as 4,167 yen/gram, its biggest gain since mid-December. The gains initially propelled cash gold even though trading was slow during the Lunar New Year break. Japan has been notably absent in the gold market in recent years. This may be changing as concerns about the Japanese economy and continuing debasement of the yen may be leading to Japanese diversification into gold.  The scale of domestic savings in Japan remains enormous. This would be a new and potentially extremely important source of demand in the gold market which could help contribute to much higher gold prices. 

Time for a mea maxima culpa: I've been wrong about everything: the stock market, the economy, globalization, energy, everything. Heck, I've even been wrong about the American diet and poor fitness; it's now clear that ice cream sundaes are health food that have been shown to extend life dramatically. Fast food is nutritious and cheap, a great combination, and there is basically nothing in the mind-body that can't be fixed in a jiffy with a handful of pills, all of which are almost free once you qualify for government healthcare programs. The economy has not just dodged recession, it's in full-blown recovery. The only two indicators that are going down are the VIX volatility index, which might just fall to near-zero as investors realize there's no longer any downside in the market and therefore no need to buy hedges, and the unemployment rate, which is steadily declining. 2012 is like 1956, 1964, 1984 and 1996: the economy is booming, and a sitting president has wisely overseen the application of brilliant policies by the Pentagon, State and Treasury departments and the Federal Reserve. The policies were simple: when "more of the same" didn't work, do even more of the same. That did the trick in everything from waging war to finding new energy sources to stabilizing the financial and housing markets.  This quote from President Calvin Coolidge neatly sums up 2012: If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.

Reuters report that the EU has agreed to freeze the assets of the Iranian central bank and ban all trade in gold and other precious metals with the Iranian Central Bank and other public bodies in Iran. According to IMF data, at the last official count (in 1996), Iran had reserves of just over 168 tonnes of gold. The FT reported in March 2011 that Iran has bought large amounts of bullion on the international market to diversify away from the dollar, citing a senior Bank of England official. Currency wars continue and are deepening. Many Asian markets are closed for the Lunar New Year holiday which has led to lower volumes. Of note was there was an unusual burst of gold futures buying on the TOCOM in Japan, which has helped the cash market to breach resistance at $1,666 an ounce.  Investors are also waiting for euro zone finance ministers to decide the terms of a Greek debt restructuring later today.  This would be the second bailout package for Greece.

All you need to read.

While it is early to determine if the ongoing breakout is finally in anticipation of upcoming episodes of direct and indirect monetization by the Fed, ECB, or any of the many other pathological currency diluters in circulation, it is obvious that precious metals have found a new bid in recent days. Is this then, the beginning of the next surge in gold and silver to record highs? It remains to be seen, but one entity, the Duet Commodities Fund which was one of last year's best performers, has already made up its mind. 'Our central forecast in gold remains constructive as our long term view targets $2,500 in 2012. Our core view is that gold will head higher to the $2,500 range driven by consequential USD weakness once the EU crisis dissipates and the US steps into the limelight. A weaker USD is not undesirable in the world order as everyone (especially China) understands that the US consumer is the driver for global consumer confidence and consequential consumption led demand." Wow - someone in this market can actually think one step ahead of the inevitable ECB LTRO/monetization, and realize that the Fed will in turn have to escalate to that escalation. Gold, er golf clap.

A peek into the 60's manipulation and why the CFTC is a joke.

One reason for the severity of the financial crisis, and the losses incurred by banks, is that bankers and financial analysts were using linear tools in a non-linear, highly complex environment otherwise known as the financial markets.The models didn’t work. The problem we face now as investors will end up being existential for some banking institutions and sovereigns. Our (uncontentious) core thesis is that throughout the west, more debt has been accumulated over the past four decades than can ever be paid back. The question, effectively to be determined on a case-by-case basis, is whether bondholders are handed outright default (which looks increasingly like the case to come in Greece) or whether the authorities, in their understandable but misguided attempts to keep the show on the road, resort to a policy of inflation that could at some point easily spiral out of control. As Rothbard wrote, “The longer the inflationary boom continues, the more painful and severe will be the necessary adjustment process… the boom cannot continue indefinitely, because eventually the public awakens to the governmental policy of permanent inflation, and flees from money into goods, making its purchases while [the currency] is worth more than it will be in future.” “The result will be a ‘runaway’ or hyperinflation, so familiar to history, and particularly to the modern world. Hyperinflation, on any count, is far worse than any depression: it destroys the currency – the lifeblood of the economy; it ruins and shatters the middle class and all ‘fixed income groups;’ it wreaks havoc unbounded… To avoid such a calamity, then, credit expansion must stop sometime, and this will bring a depression into being.”

The world's biggest primary silver miner, Fresnillo, had flat silver production in 2011. Output is only expected to remain stable in 2012.  African Barrick Gold said on Wednesday fourth quarter gold production fell 11% and missed its annual production targets. Despite price rises seen in 2011, gold and silver mining is remaining static contrary to claims by gold bears that higher prices would lead to increased production and therefore increased supply. Geological constraints may be impacting mining companies ability to increase production of the precious metals. Standard Bank has said it lowered its average 2012 gold price forecast by 6 percent to $1,780 an ounce, but continues to expect prices of the precious metal to touch new highs in the latter half of this year.  "We maintain that gold will reach new highs this year but, given our dollar view, we believe that these highs will be reached only in the second half of 2012," the analyst said in a note. Standard Bank expects the U.S. dollar to gain strength, especially against the euro, over the next quarter. A few other banks have recently lowered price forecasts for gold, including ANZ and Credit Suisse – however the majority remain bullish on gold’s outlook for 2012.

The great lie that drives the fiat global financial locomotive forward is the assumption that there is no other way of doing things.  Many in America believe that the U.S. dollar (a paper time-bomb ready to explode) is the only currency we have at our disposal.  Many believe that the corporate trickle down dynamic is the only practical method for creating jobs.  Numerous others have adopted the notion that global interdependency is a natural extension of “progress”, and that anyone who dares to contradict this fallacy is an “isolationist” or “extremist”.  Much of our culture has been conditioned to support and defend centralization as necessary and inevitable primarily because they have never lived under any other system.  Globalism has not made the world smaller; it has made our minds smaller. By limiting choice, we limit ingenuity and imagination.  By narrowing focus, we lose sight of the much bigger picture.  This is the very purpose of the feudal framework; to erase individual and sovereign strength, stifle all new or honorable philosophies, and ensure the masses remain completely reliant on the establishment for their survival, forever tied to the rotting umbilical cord of a parasitic parent government. 

Recently, public interest in gold and silver and gold/silver mining stocks has been at multi-year lows. And that is a super bullish contrarian indicator.

Back in August 2010, we presented an idea proposed by our friends at SK Options trading for a very simple trading strategy: being long gold in the overnight session, and shorting it during the day. At the time of writing, such a strategy would have returned $2.16 billion from a $100 million initial investment in 10 years, a 37.46% annualized return. Today, we provide a much needed follow up to this quite stunning divergence. As SK notes: "we have revisited the article and written an update. Not only does the discrepancy still exist but it has been actually increasing. That fund would now be worth $5.26B, way up from $2.16B when we last wrote about it - in other words an increase of 143% in just over a year. When we wrote about this in August 2010, the annualized return of the Long Overnight/Short Intraday gold index was 37.46% since the start of 2001. However if we measure from now the annualized return since 2001 is 43.24%, with the annualized return of the Long Overnight/Short Intraday gold index standing at roughly 64.4% since 2009." So for those who wish to layer on an additional alpha buffer on top of what is already the best performing asset of the past decade, the SK Options way just may be the strategy. As for the reasons for this gross arbitrage - who cares. Is it manipulation? is it the early Asian buying offset by London pool selling? It is largely irrelvant - the point is that this is "the divergence that keeps on giving" - kinda like a Stolper trade, or an inverse Tilson ETF, and until it doesn't, or until something dramatically changes in the precious metal market, it is likely that this trading pattern will continue for a long time.

2011 was a merry-go-round of more bailouts, more deferrals and more denial. Everyone is tired of the Eurozone. It’s not fixable. There’s too much debt. The politicians don’t know what’s going on. Nothing has structurally changed. We’re still on the wrong path. There’s more global debt than there was a year ago, and it’s the same old song: extend and pretend, extend and pretend,… around and around we go,… and it isn’t fun anymore. Just as we wrote back in October 2007, and again in September 2008, we feel compelled to state the obvious: that the financial system is a farce. It’s a complete, cyclical farce that defies all efforts to right itself. This past year continued the farcical tradition with some notable scandals, deferrals and interventions that underscored the system’s continuing addiction to government interference. With the glaring exception of US Treasuries and the US dollar (which are admittedly two of our least favourite asset classes), it was not a year that rewarded stock picking or safe-haven assets. Many developments during the year bordered on the ridiculous, and despite some positive news out of the US, we saw little to test our bearish view. If anything, our view was continually re-affirmed.