A strange time for listed gold stocks

Batten the hatches: continue shorting gold stocks, and buy . . .

JOHANNESBURG - By now, anyone or anything not predicting that the gold bullion price will continue rising has been hunted off the face of the planet. Never mind a decade of bull markets for the yellow metal (and a near fivefold rise in prices), GFMS this week reckoned the metal could broach $1 600/oz by year-end.

An all time record of $1 431/oz was seen less than two months ago. The strange thing, for which there is no ready explanation, is that investors (and speculators, as always) are broadly selling off listed gold stocks. The metal is currently trading just 4% below its record level, but listed gold stocks have been clobbered for more than a month.

The US-quoted SPDR Gold Shares ETF, the world's biggest gold exchange traded fund (ETF) (market value: $56bn), tracks the bullion price, as ever, and is just 4% off its highs.

For miners of the metal, stocks prices look painfully out of synch. Toronto-based Barrick, the world's biggest gold digger by value and output, has surrendered 15% of its NYSE-quoted market value, now at $47.4bn, since early December, when dollar gold bullion most recently peaked. (more)