With Sentiment In The Gutter, Will Gold Stage A Rally?

A week ago Friday, the metals got clocked hard. It was a drive-by “paper gold” shooting on the Comex, which took place after most of the rest of the world had gone home for the weekend. On Monday, the Hulbert Gold Stock Newsletter Index fell to zero. On Tuesday it dropped to negative 2.7. The HGNSI is an index that measures newsletters which make trading recommendations on mining stocks. A negative reading means, overall, the newsletters are net short in terms of position recommendations. Zero and negative readings are typically highly correlated with bottoms.

Since I’ve been following the HGNSI (since 2005), it has been a remarkably accurate contrarian signal. However, it does not offer any information on the timing of a move higher. That, of course, is always the money question. What I can say, however, is that if you have cash to put to work in the sector now is a good time start slowly buying into your favorite ideas.

There’s a growing feeling among long-time gold investors like myself that precious metals will potentially stage a surprise move higher in the near future. Note how I do not define “near future.” This is because Central Bank intervention makes it next to impossible to forecast over the “near future.” It’s this way now with all markets, not just gold and silver.

My friend and colleague, Chris Marcus of Arcadia Economics, invited me onto his podcast to discuss the precious metals market, stock market, Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) and the general economy:

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