It is also worth noting that the analysis assumes that something akin to the status quo will persist – which is very unlikely given the pressure building up behind the thin dykes keeping the world’s largest economies intact. The landing of even a small black swan at this point could trigger a devastating cascade.
We have said it before, and we’ll say it again: there is no way out of this mess  without acute pain to a wide swath of the citizenry in the world’s most developed nations. While this pain will certainly be felt by sovereign bond holders (and already has been felt by those who owned Greek issues), it will quickly spread across the board to banks, businesses and pensioners – in time wiping out the lifetime savings of anyone who is “all in” on fiat currency units.
In this environment, gold isn’t just a good idea – it’s a life saver. And gold stocks are not just a golden contrarian opportunity, they are one of the few intelligent speculations available in an uncertain investment landscape. By speculation, I mean that, at these prices, they offer an understandable and reasonable risk/reward ratio. Every investment – even cash – has risk these days. With gold stocks, you at least have the opportunity to earn a serious upside for taking the risk… and the risk is much reduced by the correction over the last year or so.
Now, that said, there are some important caveats for gold stock buyers.
- With access to capital likely to dry up, any gold-related company you own must be well cashed up. In the case of the producers, this means a lot of cash in the bank, strong positive cash flow and a manageable level of debt. (Our Casey BIG GOLD service – try it risk-free here– constantly screens the universe of larger gold stocks for just this sort of criteria, then brings the best of the best to your attention.)In the case of the junior explorers that we follow in our International Speculator service (you can try that service risk-free as well), the companies we like the most have to have all the cash they need to clear the next couple of major hurdles in their march towards proving value. That’s because a company can have a great asset but still get crushed if it is forced to raise cash these days… and the situation will only get more pronounced when credit markets once again tighten as the global debt crisis deepens.
- Beware of political risk. Despite the critical importance of the extractive industries to the modern economy, the industry is universally hated by politicians and regular folks everywhere. If your company – production or exploration – has significant assets in unstable or politically meddlesome jurisdictions, tread carefully. And it’s important to recognize that few jurisdictions are more politically risky than the US. This doesn’t mean you need to avoid all US-centric resource stocks – but rather that you need a geopolitically diversified portfolio that you keep a close eye on at all times (something we do on behalf of our paid subscribers every day).
- Know your companies. Some large gold miners are also large base-metals miners. And at this juncture in time, personally I’m avoiding base-metals companies like a bad cold. While most base-metals companies have already been beaten down – and hard – over the last year and a half, the fundamentals remain poor. Specifically, they not only have the risk of rising production costs and political meddling, but unlike gold – where the driving fundamental is its monetary role in a world awash with fiat currency units – the base-metals miners depend on economic growth to sustain demand for their products. In a world slipping back into recession – or perhaps, in the case of Japan and China, tripping off a cliff – betting on a recovery in growth is not a bet I’d want to make just now.
While it is hard to accurately predict the timing of major developments in any one economy, let alone the global economy, there are a number of tangible clues we can follow to the conclusion that the next year will be a seminal one in terms of this crisis.
For starters, there is the next round of Greek elections on June 17, the result of which could very well be the anointment of one Alexis Tsipras as the head of state. An unrepentant über-leftist whose primary campaign plank is to tell the rest of the EU to put their austerity where the sun doesn’t shine, the election of Tsipras would almost certainly trigger a run on the Greek banks, followed by a cutoff of further EU funding and Greece’s exit from the EU. And once that rock starts to slide down the hill, it is very likely that Spain and Portugal will follow… after that, who knows? As I don’t need to point out (but will anyway), June 17 is right around the corner, so you might want to tighten your seat belt.
A bit further out, but not very, here in the US we can look forward to the aforementioned fiscal cliff. Or, more accurately, the political theatrics around the three colliding co-factors in that cliff (the approach once more of the debt ceiling, the expiring tax cuts and mandated government spending cuts). While the outcome of the theatrics has yet to be determined, it’s a safe bet that the government will extend in order to pretend while continuing to spend – and by doing so, signal in no uncertain terms that the dollar will follow all of the sovereign currency units in a competitive rush down the drain.
Bottom line: Be very cautious about industrial commodities as a whole, at least until we see signs of inflation showing up in earnest, but don’t miss this opportunity to use the recent correction to fill out that corner of your portfolio dedicated to gold and gold stocks.
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