Precious metals drop 3%: geopolitical and inflation nerves ease. [Recovering $10 -- futures contract. Tuesday update]
Brien Lundin just now: "Looks like games being played again on futures exchanges, with a battle royale amongst hedge funds vs. bullion banks at month end, with supposed peace in the Middle East as a fulcrum." More below.**
The Calandra Report trading: Below ***
[Miners, developers and speculative explorers I visited at the conference included Banyan Gold, Contango Ore, Vista Gold, Comstock Inc., Delta Resources, Avino Silver & Gold Mining, Kenorland Minerals, Coppernico Metals, Honey Badger Silver, Group Eleven Resources, Canalaska Uranium, Western Alaska Minerals, others. *]
Blanchard, a real showman who became wheelchair bound after a teen-years accident, had an airplane fly over President Richard Nixon’s second inauguration with a banner: “Legalize Gold.”
He challenged the U.S. Treasury to arrest him for owning a two-ounce bar of gold.
“I think the gold rebound is imminent. We have entered the end of the period of 45 years of easy money.” — Brien Lundin of Gold Newsletter and New Orleans Investment Conference. **
President Gerald Ford legalized gold ownership, banned in 1932, it is reported, after seeing a television commercial of Blanchard, who held a bar of gold and asked, “Why can I not own this?” Reference here.
“Ford signed a bill into law (and) that bill was the result of (Blanchard’s) extensive legislative lobbying,” Brien notes.
Blanchard adored capitalist and objectivist author and philosopher Ayn Rand and named a son, now an embattled crypto-gold entrepreneur, Anthem Hayek Blanchard, after a novella she wrote.
My first New Orleans show was in 2003, when the show was buzzing and miners’ shares were hopping. I was reporting on the original South Africa platinum metals developer Ivanhoe Mines at the time.
This year, 2024, the hall was nearly packed — the busiest show I have seen in many years.
I moderated the opening Precious Metals Panel as I often do. Brien, who took the show and newsletter baton from James Blanchard after the coin dealer and conference organizer died at age 56, and Brien’s staff tell me the show saw more than 500 attendees, not counting 91 exhibitors and their peeps.
Brien opened the show this year, joining Avi Gilburt, James Grant, Rick Rule and 20 other speakers in proclaiming gold’s continued rebound this year and-or in 2025 and 2026. [I continue to see (hope for?) $3,000 gold by year-end 2024 — even amid the week-starting selloff of precious metals, including platinum.]
Attendees in the exhibit hall were asking informed questions about mining and exploration operations and stock-related balance sheet queries.
Johnny Tooke of Casper. Wyoming, pictured above, asked several micro-cap CEOs, “I keep hearing this one, ‘Why is the amount of cash on the books something for investors to keep an eye on?’ ”
First and best answer? Low cash levels = probable financings that sell stock and dilute, or could dilute, shareholders, Johnny. But you knew that.
** Brien Lundin in today’s (Monday Nov. 25, 2024) subscription service Gold Newsletter:
“Rest assured that today’s big sell off is simply more gamesmanship, and I expect the rally to resume shortly.” — Brien Lundin, Gold Newsletter
Brien in the private report explained,
“Today’s Comex option expiration, combined with the excuse of peace supposedly breaking out in the Middle East, created the perfect opportunity for a counter-attack by bullion banks against the hedge funds that were trying to take advantage of the banks’ massive short exposure.
“In simple terms, it’s just more of the expected game playing we get when Western speculators are actively playing the paper gold market.”
Thank you, Brien Lundin.
* Visited companies: I own each of those above except for Coppernico Metals, Delta Resources, Honey Badger Silver, Avino Silver & Gold, Group Eleven Resources and Vista Gold.
*** The Calandra Report trading:
I reduced $500 of Laramide Resources LAM.
I have been putting more money into physical
gold and silver and platinum via CEF/CEF.A
and PPLT. Also into Alamos Gold AGI and Xtra-Gold
Resources XTG. Entire holdings in mining companies
always available on request. Our five largest
resources holdings here at home are Ivanhoe Mines;
Alamos Gold; Xtra-Gold; EMX Royalty; Contango Ore.
-- Thom
— Thom Calandra
Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.