What Will Happen to Gold When the Stock Market Crashes Again?

If you're like me, you're probably pretty damn nervous about the stock market right now - which looks like it's teetering on the precipice of disaster.  If you own gold, or gold stocks, what's going to happen to them when things melt down?  Louis James tackles that question in his guest piece here...

Gold Meltdown or Mania - Batten Down the Hatches

by Louis James, Senior Editor, Casey’s International Speculator

As Doug Casey said recently, we expect things to come unglued soon. With the ongoing madness in Europe, it seems to me that things are starting to look visibly less well glued already.

In contemplating the possibility of another stock market meltdown, it seems important to me that in spite of the exuberance with which investors rushed back into the market over the last year, the memory of 2008 remains vivid, tempering enthusiasm with caution. For example, the market still has relatively little appetite for early-stage, grassroots exploration projects; by our latest estimates, Mr. Market is willing to pay on the order of ten times more for Proven & Probable ounces in the ground than for less certain resource categories. With this evidence of caution in mind, and the great unwinding of the broader credit markets well underway, it seems likely that our sector is less leveraged than it was before the crash of 2008.

If a panic in the broader markets put liquidity-crunch-induced pressure on the gold price, the meltdown should be less severe than in 2008 and the eventual rebound could be dramatic, possibly triggering the mania we’ve been calling for. Remember: the market crash drove gold almost down to $700 in October ’08, but the same fear drove it almost back to $1,000 by February ’09. Silver topped that with a 60% rebound over the same period.

As the debt-glue holding everything together continues to lose its grip, the ride will only get rougher. As bad as 2008 was, if the Crisis Creature appears to be coming back when everyone on Main Street thought it was dead, the fear should be much worse – and that should drive gold way, way north. It’s possible the fear, coupled with the lack of any safer alternatives, could prevent gold from melting down at all, sending it instead straight through the roof into the clear blue Mania Phase sky.

With its industrial metal aspect, however, another big economic meltdown could hit silver harder than gold, and it might take longer to recover, especially if base metals don’t rebound the way they did in 2009. That said, silver has always tracked gold, so when gold heads for the moon, we expect silver will as well. It could reach even higher, if supply is cut by reduced base metal demand, as most silver production is as a by-product of base metal mines.

Either way, I don’t care if gold drops in the weeks and months ahead; the overall trend is for widespread economic fear and uncertainty to continue, holding gold prices up and eventually driving them higher. That makes the current retreat look like a great buying opportunity. In fact, putting my money where my mouth is, I picked up some more gold buffaloes just yesterday, when gold dropped to $1158. As I type, it has rebounded to $1181. I plan to buy more every time I see a sharp drop like this over the summer.

So, in addition to our multiple recent calls to take profits and go to cash, I want to reiterate that gold is cash. And it’s a whole lot more attractive than the dollar, the euro, or any paper money at present – not just as a speculation but for security as well.

What about the stocks?

Unfortunately, the stampede to safety that drives investors to gold is not likely to drive them immediately to junior exploration stocks. “The most volatile stocks on earth” is not what fearful people will be looking for – not until the panic sufficiently recedes and greed joins fear in equal measure in the marketplace…or in greater measure, come the Mania Phase.

If I’m right about fear being the driving force in the markets in 2010, whereas greed drove them in 2009, gold will have to deliver a serious wake-up call – perhaps holding over $1,500 – to really get the show on the road again for the gold stocks. If that happens while fear of a global economic slowdown continues to push oil prices lower, gold producers should be able to report extraordinary profit increases, even as other industries are tanking, and finally penetrate deeply into the awareness of broader pools of investors.

Cashed-up majors won’t have to wait for that to benefit; they may seize the opportunity created by market weakness to buy successful explorers, with significant discoveries in hand, while they are on sale. Well, some of the more nimble ones, like Kinross or Agnico-Eagle, might. The bigger companies, like Newmont and Barrick, didn’t lift a finger to pick up any bargains after the crash of 2008 and may be too cautious to act the next time around as well.

Be that as it may, acquisitions will increase the demand for quality exploration projects – the pipeline from exploration to development must be kept full – and good prospectors should at last get their day in the sun.

Punctuating this sequence will be the occasional big win on a new discovery. There haven’t been that many this cycle – not enough to replace all the gold the majors are depleting every year – but there have been some, and the market always loves a discovery.

After the first quarter of ‘09, greed outpaced fear and great development stories did phenomenally well; we saw better gains on large and growing gold stories than we did on the big producers. If fear retakes predominance in 2010, it’s profitable production that should do best, and I’d expect the biggest winners overall to be new, emerging, and highly profitable precious metals production stories. Spectacular discoveries should also do spectacularly well, but those are harder to predict. New and rapidly expanding production should be the sweet spots.

Generally, I think we’ll see our markets trading largely sideways over the next few months, with great volatility, until the debt-fueled “growth” in the global economy is exposed for the sugar high that it is. We’ve been forecasting that scenario for long enough here at Casey Research.

I expect this to play out by the end of this year, or 2011 at the latest, depending on how fast fear returns to the broader markets.

What to do

If I’m right about this, the strategy called for is a more cash-focused version of our “Buy only the Best of the Best” program. Buy nothing new unless you’re offered a great bargain in a solid company that can deliver significant new or expanding production. Nothing less than 50,000 ounces gold-equivalent per year in production will get much notice, and anything less than 100,000 ounces per year AuEq will have to struggle for respect. A solid company, of course, has great people, lots of cash, and the goods in hand.

If you want to speculate on a discovery, make sure you have very good reason to believe the project has much better than average odds of delivering a discovery – and it has to have world-class potential. That’s not hundreds of thousands of ounces but millions of ounces of gold, or equivalent.

If things do come truly unglued this year, we may well see 2008-style bargains on great companies with the staying power to recover and go on to new highs. Watch for it. Prepare for it.

Buy Low, Sell High – it’s a formula that requires patience but is the only way to go.

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Louis James has been guiding his subscribers through the ups and downs of the market with a steady hand. It’s no coincidence that every single one of his 2009 picks was a winner. Learn more about Louis’ hands-on approach and the profit opportunities Casey’s International Speculator offers – details here.

Ed. note: I am a Casey Research subscriber and affiliate.

Why the Gulf Disaster is Wildly Bullish for Canada's Oil Sands

Congrats to our friend and energy guru Marin Katusa on his excellent interview recently with John Mauldin!  I subscribe to Mauldin's premium service - thought the conversation was fantasic (which included resource expert Rick Rule as well).

Marin is always on the hunt for energy investments that also have economic advantages over competitors.  He wants stuff that's profitable at the lowest energy prices possible.  And while the Canadian oil sands don't immediately come to mind when you think of low cost oil, things start to click when you reason out which areas will benefit from the coming smackdown on offshore drilling...

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A Run for the Canadian Border

By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Strategist, Casey Research

The Gulf of Mexico disaster has changed U.S. priorities, costs, and energy supply sources for years to come. But the fact that the U.S. needs energy isn’t changing anytime soon, and as mass sources of green energy are still a while away, the most likely alternative might be the most surprising one.

With US$15 billion invested annually in offshore drilling in the United States, the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico means that this money is getting ready to migrate elsewhere. And it is the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta, Canada, that are number one on the list.

Given the amount of bad press the oil sands get, this could come as a shocker. But technological advances and improvements in recovery methods, as well as reduction of water usage and greenhouse gas emissions, have made oil sands a viable and popular option for the future of U.S. energy.

The numbers, too, are looking in their favor. Out of the 1.34 trillion barrels that is the world’s total proved oil reserves (2009), only about 20% (270 billion barrels) of this number is actually available to free-flowing capital investment – the vast majority is in the tight grip of various national oil companies.

And a good chunk of these “free-market” barrels, about 178 billion, is sitting underneath the feet of Canadians, or as some call them, the Crazy Canucks. For a country that runs on oil, the United States couldn’t have been presented with a better lifesaver. Compared to alternatives such as Chavez’s Venezuela or the oil fields of the Middle East, reliable oil from politically stable and friendly Canada is by far the easier pill to swallow.

As it is, roughly one in every six barrels of oil consumed by a U.S. citizen today comes from the Canadian oil sands. The fact that infrastructure is already in place for oil sands development and oil already flows through pipelines between the two countries only sweetens the deal.

So, we wouldn’t be taking a huge step in assuming that any future capital spending that will be diverted away from the Gulf of Mexico will find it hard to bypass Canada. In addition, as global oil supply is affected by the drilling restrictions, in the long term we’ll be seeing higher oil prices. While this news might not make the drivers amongst us happy, it couldn’t get better for Alberta and the energy companies operating in the oil sands. With oil prices hovering over US$70 a barrel, the stream of investment dollars into the oil sands is guaranteed.

Obama’s first-ever Oval Office address has confirmed our expectations of no more growth in the American offshore drilling industry anytime soon. But the Gulf accounted for a large chunk of U.S. oil production (25-30%) and consumption (9% – the entire consumption of France), and that shortfall must be met.

While renewable energy is where the future of U.S. energy lies, according to Obama, it is still some time before green energy producers will be able to meet the full demands of the nation. In the meantime, authorities have also realized the importance of Canada for U.S. energy and are enticing companies with new pipelines. Plans on expanding the Keystone Pipeline, linking up Texas and Oklahoma to 500,000 Canadian barrels a day, have already been drawn up and put into motion.

The turmoil in the U.S. energy market has created a number of opportunities, both in the short and long term. For now, investment into the Canadian oil sands is about to increase dramatically, and things are moving rapidly. We’ve uncovered the lowest-cost producer with significant upside production, and they’re the one on the list as a takeout target by Big Oil.

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[Discover the oil sands company Marin thinks so highly of… and get ready to profit when shares shoot up. But oil sands are not the only energy investment to benefit from the Gulf Coast disaster – read more here or sign up right now for a $39/yr. subscription with 3-month money-back guarantee.]

Wheat Prices Rally Like Hell, But Fundamentals Lag - A Great Short Opp?

Today, wheat prices hit their highest levels in two years.  Russia announced a ban on exports, sending wheat "limit-up" on the day, as September futures closed at $7.83 a bushel.  It's been a wild ride for wheat this year:

Since the 4th of July, wheat has really taken off. (Source: Barchart.com)

Wheat headlining the Wall Street Journal caught me completely offguard.  Long time readers know we've been on the agricultural commodity beat since 2005, so it's tough to see wheat on the move without being aboard!  Alas, I have to admit I was too distracted by the looming presence of deflation to keep an eye on the grains.

There may be opportunity yet, though - and that may be in shorting corn and soybeans, which are also rallying on the bullish wheat news.  The WSJ writes:

The wheat supply concerns are spurring price increases for other grains too. September corn futures in Chicago hit a seven-month high in early trading, rising 6.2% to $4.25 a bushel. Corn and wheat are linked because both grains are used for animal feed. When wheat locks up at the exchange-imposed limit, traders who want to buy grain futures will likely look to CBOT corn and soybeans.

I saw the supply and carryover stock numbers on beans and corn recently, and there's plenty to go around.  Some services I subscribe to were already suggesting these two as potential shorts - I'd imagine this rally could make that trade even more attractive.

And while wheat is rolling, it remains to be seen how far the actual supply fundamentals will let this rally go:

However, the situation doesn't appear to be as dire at it was in 2008, when crops failed world-wide and wheat prices rose to more than $13 a bushel. According to the latest projection from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there there will be almost 30 million tons of wheat in U.S. stockpiles at the end of next May, a 23-year high. U.S. inventories had dropped to an all-time low in 2007-08.

When trading the grains, you never want to go against the trend.  The current trend is UP, so that would be the correct short term play.  I, however, would be too skittish to pull the trigger on the long trade at this juncture, given the huge stockpiles still on hand.

Buy the breakouts, and sell the breakdowns, when it comes to the grains.  I'm afraid we missed the breakout, but there could be an inverse play when these skaters reverse course.