-- Posted Wednesday, 23 November 2011 | | Disqus

Gold stocks may have been underperforming investor expectations for many months, but that could be changing very soon. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT, explains how he uses relative strength analysis to pick winners for the readers of The Daily Gold Newsletter. His technical work points to a turnaround in precious metals stock prices in the coming months, leading to a huge market top near the end of the decade.

The Gold Report: Based on your technical analysis, you called the bear market in December 2007 and the bottom, followed by a rally in February 2009, weeks before the market turned. Your Daily Gold Premium market portfolio was up 10.5% in June of this year compared to an overall junior gold stock market that was down 9.5% during the same time. How have you fared in the last five months and what trends are you seeing in the next year?

Jordan Roy-Byrne: At the end of last week, our premium service model portfolio was up about 9% on the year. Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF, the junior gold stock exchange-traded fund (ETF) I use to compare performance, was down about 18% and Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, the large-cap gold stock ETF, was down about 1%. The last few months have been difficult for a lot of equities. As far as the trends, I try to focus on relative strength. The large-cap gold stocks have been consolidating for most of the year. Silver had that intermediate top early in the year with a parabolic blowoff move. Since then I've been focusing more on gold. In the near term and into next year it looks like gold is going to outperform silver. The larger gold stocks have been showing better performance than silver stocks and juniors. Relative strength is very important. You've got to find and focus on the leaders because they will lead the next move higher.

TGR: In a recent newsletter, you said that gold stocks are moving closer and closer to a major breakout, which is likely to produce a multiyear acceleration that would set the stage for the birth of a bubble. Can you explain what you mean by that statement?

JR-B: The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF and the AMEX Gold BUGS Index, used by some analysts, reflect the large-cap unhedged gold stocks. They've been in a consolidation phase since the fourth quarter of last year. Even a three- to five-year chart shows that the consolidation has been in a tight range, which is generally bullish. Every time the consolidation makes a low or goes to the bottom area, the weak hands are selling out. So, the stronger hands accumulate more and more shares and eventually the buying demand overwhelms the selling and you get a very strong breakout.

Sentiment indicators, such as how much money is invested in gold stocks, tell me that it's an under-owned sector. There may be more and more people moving into the metals, and gold specifically, but the gold stocks really haven't performed well in the last year or two. So, if we get this breakout, it's going to produce a strong move for probably two years.

A bubble would start after a strong move for a couple of years followed by a long consolidation or a sharp pullback. The next move higher would signal the beginning of a bubble. Looking at market cycles and at other people's research, a lot of market cycles tend to last 17 or 18 years. This bull market for precious metals is in its 11th or 12th year—a point when it is going to start to accelerate. So, we're not that not far away from the beginning of the bubble, which could be in two to three years.

TGR: Did gold stocks really get that far ahead of themselves that they needed to be in this long consolidation?

JR-B: They did need to be in a long consolidation because we had a very strong move from the 2008 bottom. Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF went from about 15 to 65. That's a large move in only about two years. After a very strong advance, it takes a lot of time to work off the overbought condition. It can be worked off either as a sharp, short correction or over time with consolidation. Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF or the AMEX Gold BUGS Index has not had a sharp correction to work off those huge gains. So, the consolidation has gone on over time. I do think that these stocks are very undervalued, with improving fundamentals. I look at the gold:oil ratio as a leading indicator for what kind of margins you could expect for the gold producers. Oil represents 25% of the cost of mining, so, it's critical that silver or gold outperform oil and do better than the other cost inputs.

TGR: The performance of the juniors versus the established companies seems to indicate that there's not much speculative interest yet in the juniors. What's going to happen there?

JR-B: That's a great point. The sector is still very under-owned and the juniors are underperforming. It also depends on how you classify the juniors. Personally, I prefer the established juniors—companies maybe with a $200 million (M) market cap or a little larger, because at that point you know that they've made it. The true juniors, with a $20–30M market cap are stocks that are really risky. They perform well when you get a huge increase in speculation, as we saw in '06 and '07 and obviously, early '09 when everything came off the bottom.

That sector of the market should do very well in the next couple of years and when the bubble begins. A lot of people who invest in those types of situations just assume that because gold is going up, juniors automatically do well and you can pick these penny stocks that are going to go up fivefold or tenfold immediately. To be really significant, a junior has to find well over a million ounces (Moz) in a good area where there are no political and permitting issues. Or a junior needs to be able to put one large mine into production or multiple smaller mines.

TGR: The junior gold index in your newsletter shows a descending triple-top pattern. Is that building into an upside breakout or will it continue going to lower highs?

JR-B: I do think the bottom is in. My index classifies juniors. A lot of the companies in my index were juniors two years ago and they've been very successful, so the average market cap may now be $500M to $1 billion (B). A junior index is going to go up over time and the companies are not going to be cheap juniors forever. Let's just compare it to Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF, which has been in a strong consolidation where the lows have remained the same over time. It's like a rectangle. My junior index has a downward sloping channel, with lower lows and lower highs. But, I do think the index has bottomed and it had a nice rally in the last month. It's just going to take a little bit of time for it to work its way back up to the highs. Obviously, I believe the large caps are going to break out first, followed by my junior index, and then the true juniors and the exploration plays.

TGR: You have a model portfolio in your publication with a pretty broad cross-section of resource stocks. Tell us a little about your selection criteria for assembling this portfolio.

JR-B: We look for a combination of strong fundamentals, technicals and management teams with a proven track record. We want companies that are well funded and are not going to do a dilutive financing anytime soon that puts pressure on the shares. We like companies that are involved in the right areas including Alaska, Nevada and some very successful ones in Mexico. Fundamentally, we're looking for good value. If it's a producer, we're looking at cash flow. If it's not a producer, it's the price per ounce in the ground, the potential for expansion and the potential profitability of the project should it become a mine. If a company is in a good area, it may get taken over, as a couple of our stocks have been and that's why they're no longer in the portfolio.

Technically, a lot of mining share prices consolidate for a long time and then have a very strong move higher. You don't want to buy anything that has gone up too far, too fast because that's very dangerous. At the same time, we don't want to buy anything that is showing persistent relative weakness, because if it keeps trending down, there's a reason. There are more sellers than buyers and the company is not doing enough to attract more buyers. This is a pretty strict criterion for us, which is why we've had decent performance in a year that's been difficult for a lot of people. I don't want to have more than 15 companies in the portfolio and right now we have 11.

TGR: Is there anything else you'd like to mention or any final thoughts that our readers can take away as to how they should be playing this current market situation?

JR-B: We've had a difficult year but I think we're coming to the end of the sector consolidation. Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF has a strong support that's well defined. Over the next month or so, I'm expecting more consolidation, but with an upward bias. In the next three months, you should probably expect a breakout to new highs. At that point you're going to see a lot of the juniors start to get a bid and perform better. But, right now I think you want to focus on the more established companies that are showing some relative strength. Make a list and look to accumulate your favorite stocks on weakness.

TGR: And, wait for the year-end selling to subside.

JR-B: That is also true with juniors who've had a tough year. There's probably going to be some tax-loss selling there. So, that's definitely something to keep in mind.

TGR: Thank you for your insights and for some very good ideas.

JR-B: Thanks for having me.

Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT, is a Chartered Market Technician, a member of the Market Technicians Association and a former official contributor to the CME Group, the largest futures exchange in the world. He is the editor of TheDailyGold Premium. His work has been featured in CNBC, Barrons, Financial Times, Alphaville, Yahoo Finance, BusinessInsider, 321gold, Gold-Eagle, FinancialSense, GoldSeek and Kitco.

Streetwise - The Gold Report is Copyright © 2011 by Streetwise Reports LLC. All rights are reserved. Streetwise Reports LLC hereby grants an unrestricted license to use or disseminate this copyrighted material (i) only in whole (and always including this disclaimer), but (ii) never in part.

The Gold Report does not render general or specific investment advice and does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any industry or company mentioned in this report.

From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its  directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned and may make purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise.

Streetwise Reports LLC does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported.

Streetwise Reports LLC receives a fee from companies that are listed on the home page in the In This Issue section. Their sponsor pages may be considered advertising for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. 1734.

Participating companies provide the logos used in The Gold Report. These logos are trademarks and are the property of the individual companies.

-- Posted Wednesday, 23 November 2011 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

comments powered by Disqus
Previous Articles

© 1995 - 2019

Live GoldSeek Visitor Map | Disclaimer