Briefly: in our opinion, full (250% of the regular size of the position) speculative short position in gold, silver, and mining stocks is justified from the risk/reward point of view at the moment of publishing this Alert.

Very little happened in the precious metals market both yesterday and in today's pre-market trading - at least so far. We will take this opportunity to discuss something that we haven't done in a while - silver stocks. To be clear, we're not going to discuss the silver mining stock selection, as that's something our proprietary algorithms do on a daily basis. And yes, during the recent long trade, the gain on the individual gold and silver miners was bigger than the one from the GDX ETF.

Instead, we're going to take a look at this sector's performance and compare it to one very similar case from the past. Yes, just one, which may not looks like an appropriate base for drawing conclusions, but the level of similarity makes it definitely relevant to the current situation. So, without further ado, let's take a closer look at the SIL ETF - the proxy for silver miners.

Silver Miners in the Spotlight

(click on the chart to enlarge it)

Ever since the SIL ETF started trading (in 2010), we saw three significant rallies in gold and silver. The first rally took place right at the beginning of this chart, leading to the 2011 tops. The second rally started in early 2016 and it was significant in case of both metals. The third notable rally started in the second half of 2018 and it ended in August 2019. It was much bigger in the case of gold than it was in silver and mining stocks, but it's clear that overall it was something major.

The first takeaway from the above chart is based on the sizes of these three moves. The most recent upswing in the silver stocks was tiny. Even though gold and silver moved higher in a visible manner, silver miners are barely up. To be clear, the rally is visible, but it's orders of magnitude smaller than what we saw in 2016. We copied the sizes of the previous rallies to the current situation (blue and green dashed lines). It's clear how tiny the recent upswing was compared to them.

The mining stocks are the part of the precious metals market that tends to show strength at the beginning of a major move up. We saw exactly the opposite. Silver miners were weak compared to what the underlying metal did. Consequently, the odds are that what we saw last and this year was not the start of a long-term bull market in the precious metals market. We will most likely get there eventually, but we are not there just yet.

The thing that we just discovered is that we see not only the similarity in terms of prices, but also in terms of volume movement. The recent move higher was not very similar to the previous upswings in terms of price, but the way volume increased and then declined is very similar to what happened during previous big rallies in gold and silver. In particular, it's reminiscent of what we saw in 2010 and 2011. Because of both the shape of volume, and of the way silver stocks outperformed silver (barely). The latter is what differentiates the recent upswing and what we saw in 2016 - back then, silver miners strongly outperformed silver.

The final parts of the rallies were accompanied by huge volume levels, but once the top was in, the volume levels notably decreased. That's what happened in mid-2011 and that's what happened recently. We marked it with red rectangles. Within the 2011 red rectangle, we saw a few separate volume spikes, and something similar accompanied the recent action too. Back in 2011, the volume spiked during the topping process. It marked the final top in gold, the second top in silver, and also the second top in the silver miners.

Higher gold prices were never seen since that time.

Higher silver prices were never seen since that time.

Neither higher silver stock prices were ever seen since that time.

The silver stock volume spiked last week in a way that was very similar to what we saw in mid-2011. Moreover, last week's session was a clear shooting star reversal candlestick. These candlesticks are powerful bearish signals if they are accompanied by big volume. And that's exactly what we saw. When we exited our long positions and entered short ones close to last week's high, the outlook was already bearish, but seeing this kind of powerful confirmation of the reversal in silver stocks makes this change even more justified.

Naturally, the numerous other factors that we discussed previously continue to support lower precious metals prices in the following months. If you haven't read these analyses - especially the ones from the "critical" section, we strongly encourage you to do so. These are not quick reads, but they are really well worth the time spent reading them.

Key Factors to Keep in Mind

Critical factors:

• The USD Index broke above the very long-term resistance line and verified the breakout above it. Its huge upswing is already underway.
• The USD's long-term upswing is an extremely important and bearish factor for gold. There were only two similar cases in the past few decades, when USD Index was starting profound, long-term bull markets, and they were both accompanied by huge declines in gold and the rest of the precious metals market
• Out of these two similar cases, only one is very similar - the case when gold topped in February 1996. The similarity extends beyond gold's about a yearly delay in reaction to the USD's rally. Also the shape of gold price moves prior to the 1996 high and what we saw in the last couple of years is very similar, which confirm the analysis of the gold-USD link and the above-mentioned implications of USD Index's long-term breakout.
• The similarity between now and 1996 extends to silver and mining stocks - in other words, it goes beyond USD, gold-USD link, and gold itself. The white metal and its miners appear to be in a similar position as well, and the implications are particularly bearish for the miners. After their 1996 top, they erased more than 2/3rds of their prices.
• Many investors got excited by the gold-is-soaring theme in the last few months, but looking beyond the short-term moves, reveals that most of the precious metals sector didn't show substantial strength that would be really visible from the long-term perspective. Gold doesn't appear to be starting a new bull market here, but rather to be an exception from the rule.
• Gold stocks appear to be repeating their performance from 20 years ago, which means that a bottom in the entire precious metals sector is quite likely to form at much lower prices, in about a year

Very important, but not as critical factors:

• Long-term technical signs for silver, i.a. the analogy in terms of price to what we saw in 2008, shows that silver could slide even below $10.
• Silver's very long-term cycles point to a major reversal taking place right now and since the most recent move was up, the implications are bearish (this is also silver's technical sign, but it's so important that it deserves its own point)
• Long-term technical signs for gold stocks point to this not being a new gold bull market beginning. Among others, it's their long-term underperformance relative to gold that hint this is rather a corrective upswing within a bear market that is not over yet.
• Record-breaking weekly volume in gold is a strong sign pointing to lower gold prices

Important factors:

• Extreme volume reading in the SIL ETF (proxy for silver stocks) is an effective indication that lower values of silver miners are to be expected
• Silver's short-term outperformance of gold, and gold stocks' short-term underperformance of gold both confirm that the precious metals sector is topping here
• Gold topped almost right at its cyclical turning point, which makes the trend reversal more likely
• Copper broke below its head-and-shoulders pattern and confirmed the breakdown. The last time we saw something similar was in April 2013, when the entire precious metals sector was on the verge of plunging lower.

Moreover, please note that while there may be a recession threat, it doesn't mean that gold has to rally immediately. Both: recession and gold's multi-year rally could be many months away - comparing what happened to bond yields in the 90s confirms that.

Summary

Summing up, our short position became profitable practically immediately, and the odds are that these profits will grow more shortly. The outlook for the precious metals sector is very bearish for the next months, weeks and - quite likely - days. Gold is likely to decline in the following days and weeks, with possible corrections probably starting close to the middle of the month and toward its end. It could be the case that we're going to take (partial or complete) profits from this position this or the next week, but it's too early to say that with certainty right now.

As always, we'll keep you - our subscribers - informed.

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Full speculative short position (250% of the full position) in gold, silver, and mining stocks is justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following stop-loss orders and binding exit profit-take price levels:

• Gold futures: profit-take exit price: $1,391; stop-loss: $1,573; initial target price for the DGLD ETN: $36.37; stop-loss for the DGLD ETN: $25.44
• Silver futures: profit-take exit price: $15.11; stop-loss: $19.06; initial target price for the DSLV ETN: $24.88; stop-loss for the DSLV ETN: $14.07
• Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): profit-take exit price: $23.21; stop-loss: $30.11; initial target price for the DUST ETF: $14.69; stop-loss for the DUST ETF $6.08

In case one wants to bet on junior mining stocks' prices, here are the stop-loss details and target prices:

• GDXJ ETF: profit-take exit price: $30.32; stop-loss: $44.22
• JDST ETF: profit-take exit price: $35.88 stop-loss: $11.68

Long-term capital (core part of the portfolio; our opinion): No positions (in other words: cash)

Insurance capital (core part of the portfolio; our opinion): Full position

Whether you already subscribed or not, we encourage you to find out how to make the most of our alerts and read our replies to the most common alert-and-gold-trading-related-questions.

Please note that the in the trading section we describe the situation for the day that the alert is posted. In other words, it we are writing about a speculative position, it means that it is up-to-date on the day it was posted. We are also featuring the initial target prices, so that you can decide whether keeping a position on a given day is something that is in tune with your approach (some moves are too small for medium-term traders and some might appear too big for day-traders).

Plus, you might want to read why our stop-loss orders are usually relatively far from the current price.

Please note that a full position doesn't mean using all of the capital for a given trade. You will find details on our thoughts on gold portfolio structuring in the Key Insights section on our website.

As a reminder - "initial target price" means exactly that - an "initial" one, it's not a price level at which we suggest closing positions. If this becomes the case (like it did in the previous trade) we will refer to these levels as levels of exit orders (exactly as we've done previously). Stop-loss levels, however, are naturally not "initial", but something that, in our opinion, might be entered as an order.

Since it is impossible to synchronize target prices and stop-loss levels for all the ETFs and ETNs with the main markets that we provide these levels for (gold, silver and mining stocks - the GDX ETF), the stop-loss levels and target prices for other ETNs and ETF (among other: UGLD, DGLD, USLV, DSLV, NUGT, DUST, JNUG, JDST) are provided as supplementary, and not as "final". This means that if a stop-loss or a target level is reached for any of the "additional instruments" (DGLD for instance), but not for the "main instrument" (gold in this case), we will view positions in both gold and DGLD as still open and the stop-loss for DGLD would have to be moved lower. On the other hand, if gold moves to a stop-loss level but DGLD doesn't, then we will view both positions (in gold and DGLD) as closed. In other words, since it's not possible to be 100% certain that each related instrument moves to a given level when the underlying instrument does, we can't provide levels that would be binding. The levels that we do provide are our best estimate of the levels that will correspond to the levels in the underlying assets, but it will be the underlying assets that one will need to focus on regarding the signs pointing to closing a given position or keeping it open. We might adjust the levels in the "additional instruments" without adjusting the levels in the "main instruments", which will simply mean that we have improved our estimation of these levels, not that we changed our outlook on the markets. We are already working on a tool that would update these levels on a daily basis for the most popular ETFs, ETNs and individual mining stocks.

Our preferred ways to invest in and to trade gold along with the reasoning can be found in the how to buy gold section. Additionally, our preferred ETFs and ETNs can be found in our Gold & Silver ETF Ranking.

As a reminder, Gold & Silver Trading Alerts are posted before or on each trading day (we usually post them before the opening bell, but we don't promise doing that each day). If there's anything urgent, we will send you an additional small alert before posting the main one.

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Latest Free Trading Alerts:

Sad moment. Paul Volcker, the former Fed Chairman went to Bank of Heaven. We are not reporting this news due to the implications for gold prices, but as an opportunity to reflect on changes in the central banking since the time of Tall Paul and on their consequences for the gold market.

The Last Hawk Flew to Heaven

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Thank you.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Editor-in-chief, Gold & Silver Fund Manager