Saut: Pharma, Gold Still Have Plenty of Upside; Financials Don't

Excerpt from Raymond James strategist Jeffrey Saut's latest essay:

In the interim, we are waiting for the various markets to “tell” us what to do, yet we are trying to take advantage of select investment situations as opportunities present themselves. Most recently, we have recommended Schering-Plough’s (SGP) 7%-yielding convertible preferred shares, as well as Wyeth (WYE) on our analyst’s recent upgrades.

Meanwhile, on the subject of “there’s always a bull market somewhere,” Barron’s Gene Epstein has penned another bullish article on gold titled, “Restoring Balance: The Case for Gold, Part II.” We have been bullish on gold since the fourth quarter of 2001, consistent with our “stuff stock” theme. Over that timeframe we have recommended numerous precious metals stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs, all of which have done well, driven by gold’s rise from $275 per ounce to over $900.

Despite this remarkable secular bull market, we think gold still has plenty of upside. Indeed, gold is one of the few items you can buy at the same price as you could in 1980! Astonishingly, however, most participants have shunned the great secular bull market in gold and now believe it is too late to invest in gold, or in gold shares. We don’t see it that way and have included a chart from the “must have” website, namely www.thechartstore.com, of inflation-adjusted gold prices for your consideration.

The call for this week: Last Friday’s session was “saved” by rumors that a rescue had been worked out for one of the monoline insurance companies. That sparked what looked to be a huge short-covering rally in the financials, leaving them potentially in a lose/lose situation. Lose/lose because if we see a further decline in interest rates it is likely attributable to a worsening of the financial crisis. If we don’t get lower rates it should be because the economy begins to reaccelerate. In either case it isn’t particularly good for financials.

Comments

[eric hart]

It depends on what you use for your inflation calculations--if your use 6-8% inflation for the last 28 years as is the most likely (not government published data), then we are about one quarter the way to golds eventual 4-5K pricetag.