metals, mining, and more......

[djAdvocate]

ok, this is really stupid.  gold was +1% today, and the gold equities were -1%.  nonsensical.

they should have been +2%.  so, this is creating a huge gap between performance and fundamentals.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

Good call on metals recouping since the start of the year. On that point, I think precious metals still below the highs put in last year is where the divergence is here. Commodity traders are pushing the prices higher while the economic backdrop for the entire commodity complex doesn't warrant it. I haven't been following super close, but industrial metals are apparently taking a bath right now; and rightly so. The fraud that is slowing being exposed in China is staggering.

I think if gold pushes past that $1400 mark you will see miners follow. JMO.

[djAdvocate]

i have a sell in for CEF at $14.50 

[djAdvocate]

sold 40% of PNPFF this morning for $2.60

disclaimer: i don't like this stock.  the management drove it totally into the toilet.
but i picked up a huge number of shares at under $1.50, so i made my money back.
now sitting on a 30% profit on my remaining shares.

[djAdvocate]

i couldn't resist increasing my holdings (+30%) of CSFFF at 77 cents yesterday.  it is ridiculously cheap, considering it will very likely make money this year.

[djAdvocate]

note to board: i am going on vacation tomorrow.  London/Berlin/Malta.  don't expect to hear much from me for a couple of weeks.

[djAdvocate]

some of the juniors popped today.  most notable was TRX (+9%).  this issue tends to lead the market by a few days, so i expect good things to happen next week. 

[djAdvocate]

uraniums are higher this morning- but the gold and silver stocks have continued to trend bearishly since Feb.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

How was the trip??

[djAdvocate]

May 9, 2017 23:51:52 GMT -5 Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger said:

How was the trip??

it was great.  i have been to London before, so...nothing new there.

Berlin was cold and gloomy, but a cheap place to live, with great public transportation.

Malta kicks all kinds of ass.  great place.  great climate.

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

May 10, 2017 14:01:52 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

May 9, 2017 23:51:52 GMT -5 Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger said:

How was the trip??

it was great.  i have been to London before, so...nothing new there.

Berlin was cold and gloomy, but a cheap place to live, with great public transportation.

Malta kicks all kinds of ass.  great place.  great climate.

Nice! Happy to hear that. I hope to visit Malta some day.

[djAdvocate]

i am overweight on HDSN with a target of $10.  just thought i would mention it.

i am evenweight at $10.  i think this thing has a good chance of going to $15.

[verrip1]

Looks like I jumped the gun on SLV (silver) a few weeks back.  The 50 day was approaching the 200 day and I bit a little on the expectation.  Hasn't worked out for me.  GLD (gold) hasn't been looking good either.  I've been waiting to see if a weaker dollar would boost GLD, but not yet.  Neither ETF is bad enough for me to sell, but I don't see valid rationales for buying this drop.  Anybody bullish on these over the next few quarters?

Bought 500 shares NHF (a high yield fixed income CEF) yesterday.  It's discount was reasonable, and I had some cash from profit taking on part of my PIMCO fixed income CEFs which were at rare premiums.  NHF's price suffered from a distribution drop a few months back and has since recovered from that but, more importantly, no significant price impact to the news of a rare increase in shares available (share dilution).  The distribution yield was 10.67% and it has been earning it.  I don't expect it to be a long term hold.

[from a previous post, I finally got a bite on a limit order for LEDD (lead ETN) - not many shares, but it is desperately low volume]

[djAdvocate]

verrip- i suspect that this will be a good year for GLD and SLV, with at least 10% gains in the metal, and probably 20% in the equities.  all of the FUNDAMENTALS indicate it, but the market is grossly bearish right now, and i can't fathom why.  could just be regression after a really few months ending Feb 15th.

i could get into a billion reasons WHY i think this will probably be a good year for gold, but you can probably guess them well enough.  in any case, i would not be on the stop side, right now.  i would just be in HOLD.

that having been said, my holdings are down almost 20% from Feb 15th, now.  if it were not for things like HDSN and a few others, i would be doing much worse over the last month or two.

[djAdvocate]

i sold some SORL and RYAAY this morning at 5.88 and 100.50, respectively.

i am raising my target on SORL to $10.  it is selling for $6 this morning.  company increased 2017 earnings forecast to $1.50/share.  i would buy at anything below $6.

[djAdvocate]

i bailed on the rest of my PNPFF at a 5% loss this morning.  they have reported year after year of losses, and i just can't take it any more. 

i bought some shares of LAD at $91.70, and i am looking to acquire more, as cash becomes available.

[djAdvocate]

so, my portfolio was +1% yesterday in a flat market.  today, i am down 1/2%, which is a really good number.  my precious metals stocks are +1-2%, with a couple of exceptions, but i suspect that they will double that by EOD, particularly if the market comes back (it is getting killed today).

what is causing the decline?  anyone know?

[verrip1]

Causation should always be posited tenuously.  However, identifying driving factors is less speculative.  Look at SPY vs. XLF (big banks) vs. KBE (more weighting to small banks).  Banks are being heavily hit.  The KBE decline shows me broad based concerns about future bank activity, more so than XLF which is impacted more by prospects of large cap business activity.  These two were big in the recent months' run up with expectations of better economic growth.  The kerfuffling in Washington pretty much begs for a market reaction, as volatility in Congress limits Congress' ability to focus on tax law changes.  The greater stress on KBE than XLF suggests to me that it is not concerns only about big business tax relief (corporate tax rate and repatriation of foreign cash), but a greater concern about the consumer economy.

KBE might be a good timing buy if it forms any kind of a bottom, for those of a risk tolerant persuasion.  Zero Hedgers would probably go short KBE - they absolutely cream over the prospect of bank collapse scenarios .

[djAdvocate]

LOL! 

edit: to answer my own question, this appears to be the reason:

www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-sp-500-nasdaq-on-track-for-worst-daily-tumble-in-8-weeks-2017-05-17?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

the R2000 is getting crushed.  nearly a 3% decline at this hour, 5/17/17

[djAdvocate]

damn.  i am wishing that i had bought more CEF rather than these equities.  in the last three months, CEF has WILDLY outperformed them.

i often forget that no matter what the equity, if market sentiment is bearish, it will get dragged down.

[verrip1]

I've had a mixed bag today.  The usual equities were down with the US market, but got gains in diversified foreign equity fund and diversified emerging market equity fund, while down in the single country ETFs I hold.  My bond mutual funds were all up slightly, but fixed income CEFs were down 0.6% to 1.5%.  My global RE income CEF and preferreds CEF were both up.  Bucking the trend in US equities were a long-short midcap fund and a large cap technology equity fund which both showed gains.  Of course, Au and Ag were up.

Overall portfolio down only 0.2% today, which is the kind of buffering via diversification I'd hoped for on a fair-sized down day in overall US stocks. 

[djAdvocate]

well done, verrip1 !!!  that is outstanding defense.

edit: i just checked, and i was -0.4%, which i was happy with, as well.  i was disappointed that my mutual holding in this area (UNWPX) was only +0.8%.  CEF, the metals fund, was +2.2%.  in an UP market, the mining shares would have been +5% today.

still, i will take it.  this was a miserable day for most people.  particularly on the NASD.

[djAdvocate]

anyone grab SORL?  it was up 25% today. 

[djAdvocate]

imo, this is a really good report card on the economy:

www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/currency

the dollar rose 5.5% after the election, reaching a high of 103 on December 19th.
since that time, the dollar has drifted lower, and is now precisely where it was on election day.

if trends mean anything, it will head lower from here, which should ultimately play out well for Gold.

[djAdvocate]

i put in 20% of my shares of SORL for sale at $7.59 today.  i should have done it yesterday, but i didn't see it going to $7.80 THIS MORNING. 

[verrip1]

Looks like I pulled the trigger too soon on reviewing Wednesday's EOD.  Several of my mutual funds reported late and they were down for the day, not up .  So I did not hit that 0.2% loss control number.  But, I have a new task to review what sort of assets bucked Wednesday's stock downtrend as ideas for the future .

Today's SPY so far is right below Friday's closing value (as I write this), so that's positive. 

Guggenheim's Scott Minerd gives his market outlooks on everything from flattening yield curve to Trump tax plan to recession expectations (he predicts 2-5 years) to sustainable investment.  IMO he's a solid guy.
www.guggenheimpartners.com/milken-institute-global-conference

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

May 19, 2017 12:45:24 GMT -5 verrip1 said:

Looks like I pulled the trigger too soon on reviewing Wednesday's EOD.  Several of my mutual funds reported late and they were down for the day, not up .  So I did not hit that 0.2% loss control number.  But, I have a new task to review what sort of assets bucked Wednesday's stock downtrend as ideas for the future .

Today's SPY so far is right below Friday's closing value (as I write this), so that's positive. 

Guggenheim's Scott Minerd gives his market outlooks on everything from flattening yield curve to Trump tax plan to recession expectations (he predicts 2-5 years) to sustainable investment.  IMO he's a solid guy.
www.guggenheimpartners.com/milken-institute-global-conference

Great link verrip!

As far as what you are talking about with the banks; when you mentioned that, all I thought about was the threat of breakup. Of course the revelation that Seth Rich leaked the DNC emails to wiki leaks, that Comeny(sic) testified back at the start of May that no obstruction was taking place.... all this points to more than ESPN being a problem for media outlets and the banks that back them....

[djAdvocate]

Aman: are you of the opinion that Muller will be an impartial judge of all this?

[Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger]

May 19, 2017 20:49:05 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aman: are you of the opinion that Muller will be an impartial judge of all this?

The way I understand his career, yes.

Further, my friend Frank said late last year that the DNC leaks came from within. It would appear the media has stepped in it again!

[djAdvocate]

May 19, 2017 22:06:45 GMT -5 Aman A.K.A. Ahamburger said:

May 19, 2017 20:49:05 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aman: are you of the opinion that Muller will be an impartial judge of all this?

The way I understand his career, yes.

Further, my friend Frank said late last year that the DNC leaks came from within. It would appear the media has stepped in it again!

if Muller is someone we can rely on, then we needn't speculate.  that was the reason i asked.