The Precious Metals Are The Market Story Of The Year So Far

“Short gold on market overreaction” – Jeffrey Currie on CNBC on Feb 16, 2016; CNBC host: “Is there any commodity that you can recommend to help our viewers make money?” Jeffrey Currie: “Short gold” – CNBC on April 5, 2016;

Goldman Sachs’ Jeffrey Currie has become the “Jim Cramer” of the gold market (click on graph to enlarge). When he issues a table-pounding call, do the opposite. When gold was approaching its bottom around the $1050 level, Currie’s price target was $800. Much the same way Wall Street banks like Goldman, with AAPL at $96 and down 27% since July have been forced to lower their price target from $200 to $150, Currie was forced to raise his price target for gold to $1080. And he’s still pounding table with a “short gold” advisory. I guess when he receives a taxpayer-subsidized seven-figure bonus every year, he doesn’t mind looking like a total idiot with regard to the market.

To be sure, there’s several developments that warrant designation as the market story of the year so far. The shocking performance of the stock market would likely get the nod except for the now-obvious fact that the Federal Reserves continuous intervention is the force behind the stock market’s buoyancy. In relation to the true underlying fundamentals, perhaps the only two markets in history that have been more irrational are the Dutch tulip bulb mania of the 1630’s and the Weimar Republic stock market from 1914 – 1923.

Without a doubt in my mind, the move up in the precious metals sector since January 20th is the market story of the year so far. What makes this even more remarkable is the relentlessness of the move despite the obvious repetitious attempts by the Federal Reserve/bullion banks to push the price of gold/silver lower with fraudulent Comex paper derivatives, as evidenced by the rapidly escalating amount of paper gold/silver contracts printed and sold into the “market.” The open interest of paper in relation to the amount of underlying deliverable physical gold/silver on the Comex has been multiplying recently at a geometric rate.

This rise in the price of gold/silver has ensued despite a plethora of skepticism from even the traditionally bullish precious metals-investing analysts. Most market prognosticators – and I’m more less guilty of this myself – have been forecasting a sharp pullback/correction in response to market technicals which heretofore have signaled the imminence of a massive bullion bank price attack.

Further contributing to the surprising price-behavior of gold is the absence of Indian imports which push the market higher with elephantine seasonal demand at this time of year. India’s import machine has been effectively shut down from a jeweler’s strike since March 1. This source of physical demand has begun to stir, which could make the present build-up in the paper short interest in gold and silver particularly interesting to watch.

There’s a flood of capital on the sidelines that stands ready to move into the sector but that is waiting for a big price pullback before initiating or adding to position. The “smart” institutional money has been unloading historically overvalued stocks and is loathe to buy near-zero yielding Treasuries. Perhaps this dynamic in and of itself will pre-empt any meaningful price corrections for the time-being. While it may feel like the metals and mining stocks have made an unsustainably large move since mid-January, these two graphs below provide some perspective on the “scale” of the current move (click to enlarge):

As you can see, the two graphs of gold and the HUI index, while making a large percentage move since mid-January, have barely moved the needle in relation to their mid-bull market tops in 2011.

For as brutal and relentless as the manipulated price correction has been for the last five years, we can expect the next move higher to be a least as equally forceful in its power and durability. Make no mistake, the underlying fundamentals which triggered the de facto financial system collapse in 2008 and drove the precious metals sector its peak in 2011 have become even stronger since the advent of QE – the money printing which further fertilized and enabled these systemically catastrophic inducing trigger-points.