Last October, while the shock waves of the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history still reverberated around the world, Trader Tracks Editor Roger Wiegand shared some thoughts with The Gold Report. In what has turned out to be an eerie understatement, he told us, “The American public herd is moving beyond being just nervous. Now they are getting scared. There is real fear in the air with inflation, massive job cuts and a drumbeat of bad news.” Not quite six months later—when many of his peers say the worst is behind us after all, the Dow regained 11% in roughly three days last week—Roger is among those waiting for the other proverbial shoe(s) to drop. He expects a spring meltdown (and maybe a gold price up to $1,260) on the heels of the much-delayed Obama bounce. While he says so many factors are at play that it’s too soon to call a summer rally, the beleaguered markets will take a beating again in September. Tiptoeing and sifting through the chaos and rubble, though, he suggests that watchful, careful, savvy investors can pick profitable buys at rock-bottom prices.
The Gold Report: You are among those who have been predicting another major downside correction in the market before May. Are we ready for that?
Roger Wiegand: First we sold-off, now we see the Obama Bounce underway. The bounce we expected a few of weeks ago did not occur quite on time but its beginnings are shining through. It’s been pretty bad. It’s been all selling, everything sinking. We’ve been waiting for that much-delayed rally to begin and perhaps last as long as two to eight weeks. The final duration is difficult to determine due to a number of other problems in the markets. But, then after a rally, which could continue from mid-March until early May, we are looking for a very large sell-off in most of the markets.
TGR: What will trigger this rally? We’ve had no good economic news.
RW: We have two ideas about what might create the rally. (1) A change in the Up-Tick Rule (2) A change in the Mark-To-Market Rule. Both of these ideas were openly suggested and hinted at last week. I think those hints were a public relations test for the public. The reactions were positive and those in charge of changing those rules, in my view, are busy, rewriting rule changes for implementation. Keep in mind rate-cutting is done and is not working anyway.
Despite a continuous stream of negative news, we think the rule changes will work to promote a rally. It seems like every time the market tries to pick up, another problem hits. Another thing that might cause a rally is the market’s extremely oversold position. Even as bad as this one is, markets can rebound and rebound with a larger bounce. When they get over-stretched—either on the long side or the short side—they want to spring back like a rubber band and go back toward the middle. We are expecting this enhanced rebound on those anticipated rule changes.
TGR: Where do you expect the Dow price to go on a recovery?
RW: We’ve said previously we expected the stock market to come back on Mr. Dow at least as high as 10,400 to 10,800. With our latest pronounced weakness, we’re pretty sure it won’t rally that far, but, in fact, could go as high as 8,400 to 8,800. Lately we’ve heard news saying they’re looking for a major summer rally. I’m not looking that far ahead. I have to see what happens between now and the middle of May before forecasting anything next summer.
The overriding factor through this whole period is the fact the President’s new extreme budget is going to Congress for a big fight. Where this will go, we don’t know. Some Democrats think it’s too far-out and want to vote against it, or modify it greatly. We think they’ll find middle ground somewhere on some things, but that’s just a guess. Most of it is waste in our view.
One of the analysts I was reading—one of the very good ones—made note that P/E ratios were at 23. That surprised me; I thought they were recently more like 16 or 17. In the long pull—say three to five years, or as early as 18 months—we are forecasting a P/E ratio of 7. That’s a huge drop from 23. If this happens, we think the market’s going to be at Dow 3,000 or 4,000. Many were saying if the S&P broke 700 and held lower, we would sell even faster. That’s not happened and it surprised me, too. We were clinging to 685 and those two potential rally points (listed above) were tested providing firmer footing. Now we are not only above 700 but above 728 with major support touching 762 on the March E-Mini futures contract March 16, at 10am.
TGR: With this budget fight brewing, the on-going stream of bad news, more banks begging for more bailout money, AIG still having problems—can this larger rally materialize at all? Or should we just expect to continue a downward slide that still ends up at the same place at the end of the summer?
RW: No question, there’s a chance that could happen. If things are bad enough long enough and there’s no holding support on some of these technicals, we could slide steadily right through to the end of the summer and even into fall. There’s always a return somehow where price comes back on a relief rally, but that’s just a dead cat bouncing. There could be several of those. Our next question is can the Dow hold above 7,250 support? The S&P’s look better.
What you’re suggesting is that there may be no rally at all; might well happen. If that’s true, I would be wrong on my trend, which is the first time I’ve been wrong on trend. I’ve been wrong on prices and extremes in either direction, but I’ve always been right on trend. I just have a feeling that somehow they’re going to find a way to stop the selling, pull it back together for a base, and we’re going to take-off. This dead-cat bounce could have a life of three to eight weeks on the widest time cycle, in my view.
The dollar index has produced a wide and pronounced chart pattern double-top and started to sell. Some say it’s going to keep climbing to 90-92. We disagree. The reason the dollar was recently climbing was because other currencies are significantly weaker. What’s happening is people are selling out of major foreign currencies and buying dollars, or using dollars to pay off debts. The yen has topped out and is ready to drop, as it’s been in a long rally. The Swiss Franc and Canadian dollar and Euro have had rallies. We like to trade the Euro, the Swiss Franc and the Canadian dollar. I don’t like to trade the U.S. dollar because volume is too thin. I believe the dollar has peaked and other currencies might rise. Today (March 16), the Swiss, Canadian and Euro are all in rallies with the dollar selling. The U.K. pound Sterling is weakest.
TGR: Last fall, when the first big drops caught everyone’s attention—after the Lehman Brothers collapse in September—everything went down. Equities went down, the precious metals went down. Oil has since gone down and hasn’t recovered. Will this next drop you’re projecting take everything down again?
RW: I think that it will temporarily. The ferocity of the drop that could hit anywhere after mid-April until the end of May could trigger a big sell-down in global stock markets. Two negative factors behind that will be a second round of residential mortgage foreclosures, which is based strictly on time and cycles, but also the first round of selling REITs. Those are new daily news.
This sell-off includes office buildings and malls. Many of those loans are going bad. We’ll actually see giant shopping malls in America closing up. Three weeks ago, some 73,000 retail stores had closed so far this year; Howard Davidowitz, the retail analyst, is projecting another 273,000 more. That’s shocking. There’s no money. It broke my heart to see the Reader’s Digest file bankruptcy. Several old-time, very strong companies around forever are falling by the wayside. Auditors are saying that General Motors is not going to make it.
TGR: Your points suggest that investors may have two conflicted thoughts. One is to put some money on the sidelines for the rest of 2009 while all of this works itself out, because it doesn’t sound as if anybody really knows what’s going to happen. The second is that some short-term profits could be made by watching some of these bounces as they kind of rubber-band back up, but ultimately go down. What’s your take on that?
RW: We’re taking the tone we’ll recommend some buying for a shorter-term gain with the idea that, when things peak, we’re out the door just for the spring exit. At this time, we have open recommendations on November soybean spreads with a short time projected for exit. We recommended gold spreads for December. By using spreads, we’re capped top and bottom, and confident we’ll find our price in the middle, make some money, and then leave. By using spreads, you can’t get knocked out. These are for futures and commodities traders.
We recommended a long Canadian futures trade today. On other ideas, we’ll have some short-term currency trades if we can find the right spot. We nearly bought Swiss Francs (a couple of weeks ago) when we got news nearly $200 billion in Swiss Francs had been loaned by other European banks to Eastern Europe. The loans can’t be paid nor rolled over. This has nasty implications for the Swiss Franc according to a report, so we didn’t take that trade.
So to answer your question, we think there are opportunities if you watch and pick your spots carefully. Obviously, it’s more dangerous than normal considering what’s going on out there, due to uncertainty and extended volatility. However, if we get continued support on the big U.S. shares markets and European markets, we’ll have confidence to recommend senior and junior mining shares for our newsletter traders in gold and silver. These ideas are now underway.
TGR: Which of the precious metals companies do you like? Any juniors in there?
RW: We have 19 recommended shares trades open in Trader Tracks. We’re looking at Endeavour Silver Corp. (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum). We have Eastmain Resources Inc. (TSX: T.ER, Stock Forum), San Gold Corporation (TSX.V:SGR, Stock Forum), Clifton Star Resources Inc. (TSX.V:CFO, Stock Forum), and Canplats Resources Corp. (TSX.V:CPQ, Stock Forum). Those are current and newer recommendations. We like to trade GLD and SLV as if we are trading pure gold and silver metal, but within the shares venue. There are other trading opportunities.
The problem with juniors is they’re easy to buy and difficult to exit. If you try to sell a junior after it’s peaked and is moving on the ABC correction selling side, where is your buyer? You can put in a price or say, “Sell the market,” and might get a bad fill. You could give back half or most of the profit that you just earned. To exit juniors you must sell them into buying strength.
TGR: So what’s an investor to do?
RW: To deal with that, you have three choices. (1) Don’t buy and wait. (2) Buy and stay with it, selling into strength—but you have to understand technicals to do that. (3) Just buy and hold, enduring a selling period while waiting for a rebound. You might have to hold for two to three years.
From our point of view, from what we can see today and from what Bob McHugh (Main Line Investors) and other good analysts say, we see an active rally for gold and silver shares. We expect these PM rallies to follow and trade with the Dow, S&P and others.
TGR: If PMs are coupled with the Dow and S&P, will they be coupled on the downside as well?
RW: It’s hard to say. I think they will, because shocks from negative events could be strong enough to pull everything down. I’m going to recommend choices when I can see we’re nearing a peak; and that’s coming in a matter of weeks, not several months.
For the first five months last year, we were up 220% in our futures and commodities—at least I was personally—and I held on and lost it all, then went under water -70% on my original capital. I managed to end the year in the green plus 1%. Big deal. I went through the whole machination last year and made +1%. But at least I wasn’t burned-off the way many traders were. For now, I’m vacillating between +7% and +15% in the green. But as gold trades higher, silver and some other commodities and currencies should rally, too. We have very high goals.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 of this article.
Using the nom de plume “Traderrog,” Roger Wiegand produces the popular Trader Tracks e newsletter, providing investors with short-term buy-and-sell recommendations and insights into the political and economic factors that drive markets. An insatiable reader, he digests a variety of domestic and international publications, with the economic, political, monetary and market news and commentary woven into his opinions and analyses. For more than 17 years, Roger has devoted intensive research time to the precious metals, currency, energy and financial markets. But his varied background—which includes graphics, writing, editing, sales, marketing, commercial printing, consulting and real estate development (from sand and gravel mines to landfills to residential/commercial projects)…and trading—also shapes the view he shares. In addition to Trader Tracks, Roger also pounds out a weekly “Rog’s Corner-After The Bell “column for Jay Taylor’s Gold, Energy & Tech Stocks newsletter. For other essays, visit websites such as Kitco.com and, of course, The Gold Letter. Roger is a frequent speaker at The Cambridge House Resource Conferences. Visit Roger and Jay’s website at webeatthestreet.com. Tel: 718-457-1426 Claudio Bassi, Manager cbassi@miningstocks.com
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