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THE START OF A RUN FOR GOLD
by John Lee, CFA
Portfolio Manager, Mau
Capital
April 9, 2008
The price of Rice doubled in
the last 2 months raising fears of fresh outbreaks of social unrest
across Asia, where the grain is a staple food for more than 2.5bn people
(See article in FT.com here)
This should come as
no surprise since grains, energy, and just about every other commodity
prices have risen a minimum of 50% in the last 6 months. And a strong
physical demand and lax monetary policy will continue to fuel high
commodity prices.
You might have also
read that Carlyle Fund and Bear Stearns blew up in the past month. Two
companies going down is not a cause of concern as companies rise and
fall all the time. However, when considering they have about $300
billion worth of mortgage positions with their counterparty sweating,
you begin to understand why the New York Fed agreed to advance $30
billion to help JPMorgan assume Bear Stearns positions. Last year,
I wrote that the mortgage mess was minimum a $2-3 trillion problem. We
are about half way through, so expect to still see massive write downs
from pension funds, endowments in 2008, together with perhaps another
major blow up besides Bear Stearns.
All those bailouts
are creating moral hazards and the Fed has no room to raise rates to
combat inflation. Monetary instability and fears of inflation are gold's
best friends. This is why my focus right now is on precious metals. I
expect the mortgage mess climax to take place in 2008, which will more
or less correspond to a spectacular rise for gold this year.
Asia
barely sneezed at subprime but they sure are catching cold feet on
inflation and fever on gold. Technically, at $920/oz Gold is comfortably
above previous all times of $850/oz set in 1980. I am very confident the
downside is $850-$890/oz. While the upside is anyone's guess, studies
suggests a gold price between $1,500 to $2,000/oz based on today's oil
and copper price of $100/barrel and $3.7/pound respectively.
Interestingly though, gold juniors as a whole are trading
today at their lowest level this decade relative to the price of gold as
illustrated in the chart of the following article:
http://www.stockhouse.ca/shfn/editorial.asp?edtID=39139
It makes no sense
that the American mortgage crisis is impacting Canadian gold and
resource juniors. One can now margin at 5% to buy oil trusts paying 15%
dividend and gold juniors for less than $10/oz in the ground. I am
confident the situation will reverse, offset not by higher interest
rates but by higher junior stock prices.
Within two months
and as soon as we hit the bottom of interest rates, I expect all the
hoarded money to spill out looking for a new home as it simply does not
pay to park money earning 2% with real inflation running at double
digits.
I monitor hundreds
of companies every day and pick entry points. In the last 6 months,
juniors have decisively bottomed after their prices have been slashed up
to 90% in some extreme cases. I am now seeing nice pops here and there
like mushrooms on a sunny spring day after the storm. There are many
quality junior companies with good cash positions, a low market cap
and good prospects. Some of them are featured at www.goldmau.com
I hope you have
enjoyed this update. I invite you to join the gold ride.

© 2008 John Lee, CFA
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Lee, CFA | Mau Capital Management
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