Point of Recognition

Alf Field
29 Oct, 2007

There is often a moment in a major market move where public perceptions of the item suddenly change and the feeling is something like: "Yup, this REALLY is a bull market!" or "Yup, this REALLY is a bear market!" This is sometime called the "Point of Recognition".

Gold and the US Dollar seem to be experiencing something of this nature right now, except that gold is being recognised as being in a bull market and the US Dollar as being in a bear market. The Point of Recognition generally occurs about midway through a major move and is a useful guide as to the remaining length of the move underway. Very often the Point of Recognition is seen as a large gap on the chart of the item.

In this chart of the Comex Gold price, a gap occurred Friday 26 October 2007 and with gold trading in Asia at around $790 in morning trade on Monday 29 Oct 2007, another gap may be formed in USA trading today (29 Oct 2007). There is little doubt that the perception of gold has changed in the past week and one can sense the new sentiment of "Yup, this is REALLY a bull market" has emerged in the market place.

If we saw the midway gap on Friday 26 Oct 2007 at $777 on the Gold Comex Futures, we can estimate that the current up move should take the gold price to around $900 without any significant corrections on the way. This is calculated by deducting the starting point of the move at $647 from $777, giving a figure of $130. When $130 is added to the midway point of $777, we get a target of $907.

There are still sceptics around, people pointing to sentiment indicators that suggest that gold is over-bought. Numbers such as 92% bulls are suggested as a reason why the gold market should turn around and correct. The fact is that in a real bull market, sentiment numbers can (and often do) remain extremely extended for considerable periods of time. People who rely on these over-bought/over-sold indicators may find that they miss a major opportunity or, worse still, suffer burnt fingers.

Perhaps a more reliable indicator of the level of interest and bullishness in the gold market can be gleaned from the following record of web site traffic for www.Kitco.com, which has been defined by alexa.com as the No. 1 site for visitors interested in the gold price.

The chart above covers the past 5 years. The peaks in activity in late 2003 and in May 2006 coincided precisely with major frothy interim peaks in the precious metal markets from which lengthy corrections followed. What is obvious from this chart is that activity on the Kitco.com site is very near to a 5 year low! This certainly does not suggest that the gold market is anywhere near over heating.

Other gold web sites are also reporting 5 year low points in web traffic. Some of this decline may be related to overall web traffic increasing while gold related traffic has remained static. This has the same implication - there is no sign of speculative excesses in the precious metal markets.

The Point of Recognition appears to have come about due to an increasing awareness of the economic crisis that has developed and the safe haven properties of precious metals. The world is facing a truly unprecedented series of global events, the consequences of which will represent the single most important factor impacting investment decisions from now onwards.

...The US is caught between a rock and a hard place. If the Fed does not reduce interest rates, the economy will unravel and massive de-leveraging will occur with devastating consequences. If the Fed does reduce interest rates, the US Dollar will continue to tank, probably at an increasing rate. We already know that the Fed has made its choice. It will abandon the US Dollar and try and save the economy.

Let's be blunt about it: THE US DOLLAR IS IN A DEATH SPIRAL. This is already (and will become increasingly more so) the single most important factor to consider in investment decisions.

Those countries that continue to intervene in currency markets to prevent their currencies from appreciating against the US Dollar will cause their currencies to follow the US Dollar into the Death Spiral.

We are facing the end of the US Dollar Standard in world trade. It is the end of an era that has spanned 36 years and there is no ready-made replacement for the US Dollar as a unit of measurement. The world is facing a period of monetary chaos.

How this will all work out is extremely uncertain. It is possible that the world is facing a debt implosion and a deflationary crash. The background factors for that to happen are all in place. Governments, such as the USA and Britain, have indicated that they are not prepared to accept the pain of a deflationary depression and will do whatever they have to do in order to prevent this from happening. They are prepared to sacrifice their currencies and endure a wild ride on inflation - if that is what is required. There appears to be no middle or "muddle-through" path. An ugly, damaging landing of some description seems to be inevitable.

These opposing forces, Deflationary vs Government Intervention, in an era where the US Dollar Standard is rapidly coming unhinged, leads to an expectation of Hyper-Stagflation as the possible economic outcome.

How does one handle the situation from an investment standpoint? If the deflationary forces do produce a massive collapse despite the Government's and Fed's best efforts, the safest and possibly best place to be is in Government Bonds. If it is the Hyper-Stagflation scenario, one would want to be in tangible assets, "store of value" items, of which precious metals will no doubt prove to be the best and safest haven.

As nobody can be absolutely certain as to the how this major crisis will play out, the prudent and conservative policy is to have something in both camps, adjusting the percentages as time goes by when it becomes clearer which of the two outcomes will prevail.

Money is flooding into US Treasury bonds and into gold, silver and oil. It seems that money managers have passed the "Point of Recognition" and are adopting the prudent and conservative policy suggested above.

29 Oct, 2007
Alf Field

321gold Ltd