I am going to go out on a limb, and say that SILJ will not go below $10/share again in this bull market. I will discuss the chart in a minute, but so many things have been happening lately with banks going belly up in both the US and Europe, real estate prices now souring, and inflation still a big problem, that the fundamentals supporting precious metals are now better than at any time since the late 70’s. Combine these observations with the technicals on the charts, gold trading near all time highs, etc, and its a recipe for a rip-roaring bull market. I saw this morning that Equinox gold is selling forward some of its gold production, about $200 million worth, in order to fund their newest mine build. Normally selling production forward is something shareholders don’t like, we want the exposure to higher metals prices in the future, but here is where the EQX news gets interesting. They sold gold for approximately $2175/ounce, deliverable between 2024 and 2026, which shows the buyers think gold will be north of that level, and well into new all time highs! Not only did they not have to dilute shareholders to fund the new mine, they are getting prices for their gold that have yet to be seen on the futures markets, suggesting the real price of gold is much higher than what leveraged paper exchanges are showing. Let’s hope this starts a trend in the industry, where producers raise funds at prices much higher than current paper metal prices. Importantly, it is still too early to focus on junior explorers, in my opinion, this option would not be available to them as it has to be a miner already producing the metal, this means the small juniors will still have to dilute shareholders, so I am sticking with mid-cap producers for the time being in the SILJ etf. Here is the Equinox article https://www.equinoxgold.com/news/equinox-gold-announces-up-to-200-million-in-gold-prepay-and-gold-purchase-and-sale-arrangements/

Now lets look at the charts. SILJ’s 200 day MA is flatlining and about to turn higher, as the GDX etf just did today. We are also in a new intermediate cycle, about 3 weeks in so far, so should expect to see generally higher prices for many more weeks. Besides the steep trend line I have drawn also sitting on the 10 day MA, SILJ could find support at the 50 day MA around $10.40, and especially at the 200 and 20 day MA´s down at $10, on any pullback. With the 200 day MA about to trend higher, I feel fine predicting the bull is back in force, and SILJ won’t go below the $10 level again for the rest of this bull market.

Next, let’s take a peek at a ratio chart of $GOLD vs. the $SPX. I must mention I got the idea from Patrick Karim, a fine technical analyst over at NorthStar BadCharts, but I sometimes find his charts hard to read the fine print, so I made my own ratio chart with the broken down trend line. Not only has gold broken out vs. the S&P on a long term, monthly chart, as Patrick suggests, the ratio is breaking above the very important .49 level he determines by using the 84 month MA. In short, he suggests a monthly close over .49 is a historic breakout, one of only four that have happened in the last 100 years or so. It would usher in a new, big bull market in metals and miners, and the end of the month and the quarter is just 3 days away. Gold itself might even achieve an new all time closing high on the monthly and quarterly charts, so very exciting things are occurring, all with the backdrop of failing banks and the Fed expanding its balance sheet again!

There has been so many headlines lately that its hard to keep up! It doesn’t matter, when one has a plan. Gold, silver, and miners have been the only things rising lately, so will likely entice investors to get involved at some point soon, and considering we are very early in the new intermediate cycles for metals and miners as we are probing breakout areas, this could be the start of something big.

Besides adding to several precious metals positions over the last few weeks, I just started to nibble on uranium miners via the URA, URNM, and URNJ etfs. I will cover the new stake in uraniums in the next posts, but I have only started and my major focus in on precious metals and their miners at the moment. The fundamentals are in place with big banks going belly up daily, and while the central banks so far are still getting involved with printing money to soften the blow, there are other things vaporizing overnight like crypto bank Silvergate Capital, institutions that are unlikely to get bailed out. The Fed is now trapped, plain and simple, if they choose to continue to fight inflation by raising rates, that will continue to bury the banks and the economy. And if the Fed changes course and starts making more fiat currency out of nothing, with inflation rates already very high, this tact will cause inflation to get much worse. All one has to do is ignore the distractions and panic, and be out of banks and most paper financial assets, instead be invested in real assets, tangibles like gold and silver, as well as their miners since they also own the physical commodity already safely buried in the ground. Other commodities are fine as well, like uranium mentioned above, but in the immediate future as the economy tanks, things like energy and base metals will see demand destruction and pressure on prices quite possibly. I want to own copper miners at some point, but unlike uranium miners, coppers have not yet pulled back enough and consolidated long enough yet to turn me into a buyer. Still I would own just about anything commodities over financial assets at this stage of the game, though I would not trade futures contracts any longer with the credibility of the exchanges in serious doubt. I will stick with the miners of commodities, and physical metals when it comes to gold and silver.