Strength in Mining Stocks and Its Implications

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Briefly: In our opinion, full (150% of the regular full position) speculative short positions in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective at the moment of publishing this alert.

Yesterday’s session was not like the previous ones – in the previous days, the precious metals sector moved lower together and mining stocks were leading the way. Yesterday, gold and silver declined, but miners were barely affected. Does this strength indicate a likely turnaround?

Miner’s Outperformance

In short, that’s not likely. Miners had a very good reason to rally. The general stock market soared yesterday and mining stocks, being stocks themselves were positively affected by this development. This is something that happens quite often, but let’s keep in mind that this effect is usually temporary. Ultimately, the gold stocks’ profits depend on the price of gold and thus this is the key driver of the miners’ prices. Let’s see exactly how much the mentioned markets moved (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).

GDX - Market Vectors Gold Miners - Gold mining stocks

The GDX ETF was down by 13 cents which is next to nothing. The volume was rather average and the entire session was yet another day of a post-decline pause.

Short-term Gold price chart - Gold spot price

Short-term Silver price chart - Silver spot price

Gold and silver both declined quite visibly, so the pause in mining stocks is no longer neutral by itself – it might appear bullish as the miners’ lack of decline despite gold and silver’s declines means that the former outperformed.

Likely Reason Behind Miners’ Strength

SPX - S&P500 Large Cap Index

The action in the S&P 500 Index, however, makes the action in mining stocks neutral once again. The broad market moved sharply higher to new highs, which is both: important and very visible. Consequently, it’s no wonder that this tide lifted also the boat with mining stocks and the miners’ “strength” is therefore not a true sign of strength. This, in turn, means that there are generally no bullish implications of the mining stocks’ lack of decline, despite it might look so at first sight.

Summing up, the lack of decline in mining stocks doesn’t seem to have any bullish implications as miners had a very good reason for it in the form or a rallying stock market – the lack of decline in the former is therefore not a sign of strength and not a bullish development.

As always, we will keep you – our subscribers – informed.

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Short positions (150% of the full position) in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following stop-loss orders and initial target price levels / profit-take orders:

Gold: exit-profit-take level: $1,063; stop-loss: $1,317; initial target price for the DGLD ETN: $81.88; stop-loss for the DGLD ETN $44.57
Silver: initial target price: $13.12; stop-loss: $19.22; initial target price for the DSLV ETN: $46.18; stop-loss for the DSLV ETN $17.93
Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): initial target price: $9.34; stop-loss: $26.34; initial target price for the DUST ETF: $143.56; stop-loss for the DUST ETF $21.37

In case one wants to bet on junior mining stocks' prices (we do not suggest doing so – we think senior mining stocks are more predictable in the case of short-term trades – if one wants to do it anyway, we provide the details), here are the stop-loss details and initial target prices:

GDXJ ETF: initial target price: $14.13; stop-loss: $45.31
JDST ETF: initial target price: $417.04; stop-loss: $43.12

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

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 always, we'll keep you - our subscribers - updated should our views on the market change. We will continue to send out Gold & Silver Trading Alerts on each trading day and we will send additional Alerts whenever appropriate.

The trading position presented above is the netted version of positions based on subjective signals (opinion) from your Editor, and the Tools and Indicators.

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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