I’ve spent roughly 64 years studying the stock market on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. I’d say that 80% of the time I was perplexed or unsure of my stand. I know in the advisory business you are always expected to know exactly what’s going on and where to place your money. In my experience, the more cock-sure the advisor, the bigger the quack.

One problem is that the stock market isn’t always talking, and when it isn’t, many advisors create scenarios so they can carry on the illusion for their readers that they, at all times, know what is happening.
– Richard Russell

Russell says he was perplexed or unsure of his stand 80% of the time. Even though he didn’t say so, I’d bet that it was the other 20% — when he apparently was more sure — that he was the most wrong. That’s the way it works. If you ever get to thinking you have a handle on what’s going on, watch out. That’s usually when Mr. Market is about to show you who’s boss.

So in a perplexing and unsure way I’ll timidly say that it sure seems like the mining stocks are about to do something pretty exciting, doesn’t it?

The gold ETF (GLD) — owned by the Long Term Timing portfolio — is up a very nice 4.63% over the last 30 days. But the junior miner ETF (GDXJ) — owned by the ATR Trading portfolio –  more than doubled that performance, up 9.78%.

And Silver Wheaton? Goodness gracious…

SLW –  also owned by the Long Term Timing portfolio — is up 20.35% in a month. In fact, SLW is making new all-time highs.

By the way, I haven’t written about it in a long time, but SLW has a great business model. The company doesn’t own or operate any mines. Here’s what happens –70% of of all silver production is a buy-product of precious metal or base metal production (Which is one of the exciting things about silver, but that’s another story in itself). So Silver Wheaton makes deals with mining companies to buy up to 100% of their silver production at a pre-determined price of about $4 an ounce.

The company has no capital expenditures. No production costs. It only has about 20 full-time employees. It’s a cash flow machine is what it is. SLW has been my favorite “mining” stock for a several years. It’s good to see it making its move.

Oh, I shouldn’t have to remind you, but I will anyway. Don’t think that mining stocks are getting expensive. On the contrary…

The gold/xau ratio is still well over 6. When it gets below 4, then we’ll start talking about the mining stocks being too expensive. We’re a long way from that happening.

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The charting system of Ichimoku Kinko Hyo was developed by a Japanese newspaper man named Goichi Hosoda. He began developing this system before World War II with the help of numerous students that he hired to run through the optimum formulas and scenarios – analogous to how we would use computer simulated backtesting today to test a trading system. The system itself was finally released to the public in 1968, after more than twenty years of testing, when Mr. Hosoda published his book which included the final version of the system.

Ichimoku Kinko Hyo has been used extensively in Asian trading rooms since Hosoda published his book and has been used successfully to trade currencies, commodities, futures, and stocks. Even with such wild popularity in Asia, Ichimoku did not make its appearance in the West until the 1990s and then, due to the utter lack of information in English on how to use it, it was mostly relegated to the category of another “exotic” indicator by the general trading public. Only now, in the early 21st century, are western traders really beginning to understand the power of this charting system.
– IchiWiki

Even though I haven’t stopped using them, I haven’t written about Ichimoku charts in a long, long time. It’s time for me to correct that oversight. I was inspired to start posting the charts again after I noticed that stockcharts.com has a new article about them. The article does the best job I’ve seen in presenting how to use Ichimoku in a concise but complete way. If you’re at all interested, take a few minutes and read the article.

But here are the basics:

Source: stockcharts.com

I’m only going to use the English translation of these terms. The red line is the “standard line.” The blue line in the “turning line.” When the turning line is above the standard line, it’s bullish. When the turning line is below the standard line, it’s bearish.

The green line that lags behind is the “lagging line.” When it’s above the price of 26 days ago, it’s bullish. When it’s below the price, of 26 days ago, it’s bearish.

There are also the “leading lines” to the far right of the chart. When the first leading line (green) is above the second leading line (red) it’s bullish. When the opposite is true, it’s bearish.

Finally, there is the heart of the Ichimoku system — those red and green cloud-looking things. They are called — you guessed it — “clouds.” When the price is above the clouds the trend is up. That’s bullish. When the price is below the clouds the trend is down. That’s bearish.

That’s it. I know the chart looks complicated at first, but it really is that simple.

So let’s look at the Ichimoku charts for some major markets, starting with the stock market:

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We are in a huge bull market in precious metals that — in my opinion — began in 2001. Now here we are in 2009 and gold and silver are in steep uptrends, especially gold. I know there are a lot of people who think they are late to the party and wondering how to get on the train.

I think the real opportunity is in the gold and silver mining stocks. They’re cheap and I’m going to show you why.

However, before I do you should know there are some difficulties in owning the miners. First of all, they don’t trend well — or at least they haven’t yet.

Here’s the gold and silver mining index (XAU):

Chart

Sure, it has gone higher. But notice all the nasty, erratic whipsaws along the way. Not fun and tough to trade. It’s even tougher to buy and hold.

Also, the mining stocks are notoriously difficult to analyze from a fundamental perspective. Not only can the costs of mining gold and silver vary from company to company, but there are many factors within the industry affecting profits that are darn near impossible to predict.

And if all of that’s not perplexing enough, you can also get in situations where gold and silver are going higher while the mining stocks are going down. After all, they’re just stocks. And like the stocks of other industries they’re subject to whims of the stock market.

On the other hand, mining stocks can be great investments because they are a leveraged play on gold and silver. The costs of mining gold and silver — even though they vary among companies – are relatively fixed within an individual company. So when the price of gold and silver goes higher, profits can soar at a far greater percentage than the percentage gain in the metals.

So the bottom line is, if you know when to buy them, you can make a lot more money in the miners than you can in the metals themselves. The key is knowing when to buy them.

Fortunately, I’ve learned how to tell when the mining stocks are a good deal and when they’re a bad deal.

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Member question: Larry, you seem to really like gold. Why? Also, what’s the best way to buy it and how much should I own?

Read the answer

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