"When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe." … Frederic Bastiat


Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God. – Archbishop Chaput

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

HUI at a crossroads

I do not need to point out to the readers the abysmal performance of the mining shares. The hedge fund ratio spread trade has destroyed their share value and most of management seems unwilling or incapable of fighting back to protect the interest of their shareholders.

The Gold and Silver ETF's are also partly to blame in that these Trojan Horses have siphoned off a huge amount of speculative money flows that otherwise would have found its way into the mining sector shares. Those products can be used to obtain LEVERAGED exposure to the precious metals without the risk normally associated with outright purchase of a particular mining company. That makes them attractive to hedge funds which can also use them as the long leg of a spread against a short leg in whatever company they have decided that they can target.

Paying out a dividend to shareholders might put a dent in this little game being played by the gold and silver share shorts as it currently costs them nothing to LATHER, RINSE and REPEAT this strategy. If something works for a money making trade, it will continue just as long as it keeps on working. That means they can short the shares at will since they have no opposition. Shareholders may bitch and complain about it, but as long as the status quo continues, the shares will lag the price of bullion.

The non-stop selling barrage has brought the HUI down into a critically significant technical support level near 492-490. This level must hold or if broken, must be recaptured by the close of trading Friday, to prevent a further drop lower.

At this point in time, the only thing that I can see which will lead to the shares outperforming bullion would be another round of monetary stimulus from the Fed. In such an environment, the share prices will outperform the metals initially with silver outperforming gold as well. Will we get one? I do not know but if the stock market continues to slide and the economic data numbers do not improve, I bet we will, impact on the US Dollar notwithstanding.

Gold very strong in terms of the Euro

Investors fears concerning the nation of Greece with a potential for default on its bonds has kept a very firm bid beneath the price of Gold on the Continent. As you can see on the chart, gold priced in euro terms is within a whisker of its recent all time high. It is this strength which is preventing the Comex gold bears from substantially breaking down the price in US Dollar terms even as we are seeing a general selling theme across the commodity complex today.