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David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Precious Metals / Commodities

VanEck ViewPoint: The rhyme of history

Thanks to a subscriber for this report which may be of interest. Here is a section:

We expect a catalyst to emerge in the second half of the year that could drive gold higher. The most likely catalyst would be excessive inflationary expectations. Inflation expectations have returned to pre-pandemic norms, although a number of developments listed here suggest it could spiral out of control:

• US$1.9 trillion of additional fiscal stimulus is likely to be introduced on top of previous government spending, some of which has yet to be utilised;
• The US Federal Reserve (Fed) continues to buy US$120 billion worth of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities each month;
• Lumber, oil, copper, food staples and other commodities prices have been on the rise, many reaching multi-year highs;
• Shortages of semiconductors, shipping containers and truck drivers have been documented;
• Many people are content to stay out of the workforce, collecting generous government handouts;
• Purchasing power of American families has reached record highs. Further into 2022, once the trillions of stimulus dollars have been spent, other systemic risk catalysts could emerge, such as a weakening economy, debt problems, US dollar weakness and/or black swan events caused by radical fiscal and monetary policies. We believe the long-term bull market remains intact and expect prices to ultimately surpass US$3,000 per ounce. We also note that gold miners remain cheap relative to the price of gold.

It is worth noting that since mid-2020 it appears that Bitcoin has replaced gold as the new gold. But as cryptos have continued to soar, US real rates have now undermined gold value. To remain long Bitcoin would require a belief that real rates are going to retreat.



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Email of the day on the potential for a crash:

I am a little concerned, that Bill Ackman is shorting the market and Ray Dalio and Michael Burry have predicted a market collapse. Burry recently went on record to confirm this prediction.

You have not mentioned Margin Debt for a while and my further concerns are that despite Margin Debt officially being at an all-time high - the ArchEgos scandal has demonstrated that perhaps not all of the margin debt is recorded as some hedge funds are circumventing the need to record their position by using prime banks to hold assets for them.

RLB

PS Best wishes to you and your family.



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Gold Rises to Eight-Session High With Dollar, Yield Gains Ebbing

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Gold advanced to the highest in more than a week as gains in bond yields and the dollar abated.

Treasury yields edged down from a recent high, increasing the allure of bullion, which doesn’t earn interest. The dollar gave back early gains, making gold more appealing to investors holding other currencies. The ebb is taking place even as positive economic data shows rapid growth for U.S. businesses and jobs.

That’s “good news for gold,” according to Commerzbank AG analyst Carsten Fritsch.

Gold has been under pressure this year because of increasing optimism over the post-pandemic economic recovery in the U.S., which buoyed bond yields and the dollar. Investors fled bullion-backed exchange-traded funds, a major pillar in gold’s ascent to an all-time high last year, with holdings in ETFs dropping to the lowest since May.



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Biggest Mining Buyback in Years Propels Vale to All-Time High

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

Vale’s buyback, which comes on the heels of a bigger-than-expected dividend, is the latest chapter in its turnaround story. In early 2019, a tailings dam disaster sent Vale into crisis mode, with dividends cut and operations scaled back as the company focused on shoring up safety. Now, after agreeing to a dam-collapse settlement and seeing the prices of its metals rally, Vale is repaying investor loyalty.

While metal prices have come off multi-year highs in recent weeks, they’re still well up on year-ago levels. Vale’s iron ore business generated its second-highest earnings ever and the company is focused on existing assets rather than splashing out on deals as it did in previous booms.

Shares rose as much as 6.6% in Sao Paulo Monday, closing at the highest level since trading began in 1994. The buyback should help narrow Vale’s discount to its Australian peers, according to BTG Pactual analysts led by Leonardo Correa. Vale fetches 4.8 times estimated profit versus top iron producer Rio Tinto Group’s ratio of 7.9.



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Secular Themes Review April 1st 2021



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Voltswagen Is the Perfect Example of German Humor

This article by Chris Bryant for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

This week Volkswagen AG provided a lesson in just how difficult it is to “be Elon.” VW’s U.S. arm claimed it was changing its corporate name to “Voltswagen,” denied it was an April Fools’ Day joke, then admitted that, um, it was in fact an April Fools’ Day joke gone wrong.  

The German giant has been riding a wave of investor excitement about its electric-car strategy. Thanks in part to some clever social media and marketing, VW seemed to have cracked Musk’s knack for share-price boosting publicity. The more frequently traded VW preference shares are close to a six-year high.

News of the purported name change helped VW’s American depositary receipts — the ones favored by U.S. retail investors — to climb as much as 12.5% on Tuesday. Which is where this cringeworthy incident goes from being a disastrous attempt at humor to something potentially more serious.

I’m not suggesting VW’s gaffe was an attempt to manipulate the stock market and I doubt the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission would view it like that. It’s a reminder, however, that we now live in the meme-stock age where even bad jokes can add or subtract billions of dollars in market value. It’s a minefield for corporate executives to navigate.



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Email of the day on where the most leverage resides

After Greensill and Archegos, where next? The GCC of 2008 cleaned up the banks and the Tech Bust of 2000 cleaned up non-earning tech. Leverage always lies hidden somewhere, and rising interest rates usually make the best assassins. But where's the leverage this time? Tech + Leveraged Product Roll Out? Can we put together a list of leveraged companies and sectors that will make the headlines in 2021 and 2022 as 10-year yields breach 2% and beyond? Keep up the excellent work.



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Rio Tinto to deploy Heliogen's AI-powered industrial "solar refinery"

This article by Loz Blain for New Atlas may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

That temperature can be used to generate steam and turn turbines to produce electricity, or the heat can be stored for later use outside daylight hours. It's also hot enough to be used in cheap hydrogen production – Heliogen's Bill Gross told the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2021 conference in January that a 600 x 600-m (656 x 656-yd) plant could produce around a million kilograms (2.2 million lb) of green hydrogen per year at an impressively low cost around US$1.80 per kilogram (2.2 lb) – lower than the average price of dirty hydrogen today.

Rio Tinto's boron operation, rather fittingly located in Boron, California, currently uses natural gas co-generation and boilers to produce steam for its processes. The Heliogen installation will contribute up to 35,000 lb (15,876 kg) of steam per hour to the plant day and night thanks to energy storage, and Rio Tinto says this has the potential to reduce total plant emissions by about 7 percent – "equivalent to taking more than 5,000 cars off the road," says the company, neatly sidestepping the fact that it's leaving more than 70,000 cars on the road in this metaphor.

This is just a pilot, though; should it prove viable, the company will assess whether to upgrade the facility to more than three times its current production rate, and the state intention here is to pilot the technology with a view to replicating it at other Rio Tinto facilities around the world where there's enough sunlight.



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Message Received, Loud & Clear

This report from CIBC may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The Bank of Canada is seeing enough progress in the economy that it feels it can begin reducing outdated programs, as well as slowly begin to remove some of the considerable stimulus in the system. There should not be too much impact from the cessation of select market functioning facilities directly. The bigger news today is the strongest signal yet that the Bank is ready to conduct a taper, and begin ‘right sizing’ the QE program. This is also the first time we have been shown what the future sequencing looks like, which is: i) taper to a net-zero purchase profile; ii) enter a reinvestment phase, and; iii) normalize rates. The best trades to take advantage of this are micro in nature, though also put ‘bigger’ macro trades like receiving 2yr-to-4yr forwards versus the U.S. at risk.



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In Copper Country, Lawmakers Want a Bigger Share of the Windfall

This article by James Attwood and Tom Azzopardi for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

The proposal is unnecessary and risks thwarting investment, according to government and industry representatives. Responding to criticism that Chile didn’t tax producers enough in the last supercycle, Energy and Mining Minister Juan Carlos Jobet said the current royalty system will generate more after a surge in prices pushed up earnings.

In his first term in office a decade ago, Pinera introduced a complicated system of payments that now charges large producers a variable rate on operating profit of as much as 14%. A new tax on sales wouldn’t bring in more than the current system, according to Diego Hernandez, head of mining society Sonami. Mining Council boss Joaquin Villarino warned against rushing through legislation just because copper has traded above $4 a pound for several weeks.

While consensus is building that highly profitable sectors such as mining should help finance the pandemic recovery, a heavier tax burden would add to rising costs associated with labor and the environment, BTG Pactual raw-materials analyst Cesar Perez-Novoa said.

“When doing the math, the cost competitiveness of Chile as a mining jurisdiction comes down,” he said. “So it matters.”



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