It feels like were at the point in the “correction” cycle in which the mining stocks are reluctantly going lower. I also believe that aggressive hedge funds looking to buy at this level are trying to push the stocks down in early trading in order to induce remaining weak hands to sell in their bids. Tuesday (March 20th) is a perfect example. Several of the stocks I own were hammered early and then snapped-back during the course of the day. As an example, USAU opened at US$1.84 but was slammed down to $1.75. It rebounded to close down only 2 cents at $1.80. This was despite sideways movement in gold after gold was hit in early morning trading.

The graph above is a 1-yr daily of the GDX. You can see that it’s been trending sideways since early February this year. You can see also that it’s managed to hold the 52-week lows on several occasions. It just “feels” like the miners do not want to get lower. Similarly, the sentiment regarding, and interest in, the mining stocks is at a low level seen at cyclical bottoms in the precious metals sector (Oct 2008, Dec 2015):

I sourced the chart at the bottom of the previous page from Turd Ferguson (TF Metals Report). It shows a timeline of Google searches on “gold mining stocks” over time.

The trading patterns and sentiment indicators are thus at levels that is typically associated with market bottoms. The best time to buy into a stock sector is when it’s at its most unloved. I would argue that were are at that point right now.

As far as the timing on when the sector will begin to take-off again, I’m loathe to assign a time-frame other than that I expect a big move to begin before the end of the summer. A subscriber emailed me to discuss the sector and expressed frustration over the fact that the enormous physical off-take in the eastern hemisphere has not stimulated a big move in gold. I responded by explaining that I’m not relying on the Chinese to squeeze the market.

I think the market will move higher on its own accord. As things fall apart more quickly in the west, gold will soar. Look at Wednesday’s FOMC rate hike event. Gold’s response to the Fed’s rate hike completely surprised me. We put on a trading hedge this morning thinking that gold would get hammered when the rate hike news hit the tape. Gold did just the opposite. This is bullish.

The commentary above is from the latest issue of the Mining Stock Journal. My goal is to find junior mining stocks with huge upside potential before the get discovered by the “heard.” You can learn more about the MSJ using this link:   Mining Stock Journal.

MSJ to the rescue! (of my mining stock portfolio). I’m up 198% currently on a significant stake @ .18 cents.
Thank you for all you do!
– Subscriber “Phil,” in reference to Mineral Mountain Resources, which I presented July 7, 2016