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Gold bulls no longer have heavy negative sentiment on the metal at their back, writes Mark...
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 12:46 PM ETGold bulls no longer have heavy negative sentiment on the metal at their back, writes Mark Hulbert, as his Gold Newsletter Sentiment Index (HGNSI) has risen to 54% from -14.8% in late July, with the bulk of the gain coming in just the last 2 weeks.
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What that will be 2 weeks from now? Gold volatility is back.
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09/11/2012
Barrick (NYSE:ABX) led the GDX down in negative selloff. Today, September 11, 2012, the poor performance of Barrick (ABX) was breathtaking after Jamie Sokalsky, its CEO, appeared on CNBC at approximately 11:30 AM. As a 15% holding of the GDX ETF (NYSE:GDX), Barrick's poor performance resulted in a surprising downdraft in trading throughout the afternoon session for ABX and GDX as well. Barrick's stock price hit the red line at the start of the final hour and declined to $39.26 before it rebounded to a very slight gain at the close. On a day when gold bullion rose to $3.10 to close at $1732.30, the poor performance of Barrick was especially shocking with pervasive institutional selloff and short sellers. The stock price of most other gold miners far surpassed Barrick's price today. In some cases, such as Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM), this was at a gain of +1.28% with Barrick barely clawing back to +.20% by the end of the day.
CEO, Jamie Sokalsky did an interview this morning on CNBC with Carl Quintanilla. Needless to say it was more of the same old same old that Sokalsky used in the last quarterly announcement on July 26, 2012 while Barrick was tanking to $31. Quintanilla did not ask him what he was doing about Barrick cost overruns while has was Treasurer and CFO of Barrick for the past 20 years. Nor did Quintanilla inquire about Barrick's poor stock performance, especially since his appointment as CEO. It was a very "patronizing" interview that failed to identify key issues of Barrick's management complacency and inept financial, marketing, operational, and strategic management.
Taken in the context of Barrick's performance over the past year, the Sokalsky interview this morning, and the performance of the stock since he became CEO is further conclusive evidence as to why institutional investors have lost confidence in Barrick. There was further negative news regarding cuts to Barrick's copper forecast by Reuters http://reut.rs/SCgiy5 and other media. Barrick (Sokalsky) stated that they have "recently been informed" by the Saudi Arabian government that their Jabil Sayid project doesn't conform to Saudi Arabia's regulations and that it was built in accordance with Australia's regulations. It looks like Barrick needs a map of their project locations and a compliance rule book.
Today, the day of the CEO's interviews on prime business media at the Gold Forum in Denver, Barrick made no mention of this on their website or in the interview. This was yet another illustration of their inept marketing, public relations, and investor relations strategy and management. Mr. Sokalsky's interview was a clear illustration of more of Barrick's "content free" bluster and the squandering of a major media opportunity to instill and reinvigorate confidence as well as to set investor expectations about Barrick.
Barrick's CEO should be ashamed of himself and his "handlers" for putting him behind the microphone at this stage without more vision, strategy, outlook, confidence, expectation setting, and CEO presence. Barrick is referred to by most analyst sources as the largest gold mining company in the world. Big isn't always better it appears.
On the other hand, Charles Jeannes, CEO of Goldcorp (NYSE:GG) was informative, clear, strategic, visibly knowledgeable and confident. Jeannes also presents a much broader view of global gold and leadership driven persona than Sokalsky. Based on the CNBC interviews today, it's no wonder that since Sokalsky was named CEO at Barrick, ABX's stock has performed well under its price on the day Aaron Regent was terminated, July 5, 2012.
ABX, as the largest gold mining company in the world, clearly reflects continued negative sentiment. Barrick has established a losing bias among institutional investors during the past two years and three months especially. No news of any kind, regarding their revised performance, is visible on Barrick's web site. There are no new updates by way of PR or its web site on any of their methodologies and initiatives to reduce project costs since speaking out on this at the last quarterly announcement and making it a priority. There is a continued absence of any news on John L. Thornton who recently joined Barrick as Peter Munk's co-chairman. What is his role? Is he active in the company affairs? Is he using his China connections to shop Barrick around? What is he actually doing?
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(c) BarrickDailyClose September 11, 2012
Gold has just begun to move upward after months of being stalled. It, like the other commodities have been held back by the run-up in the dollar, which was bubbling up unnaturally relative to the euro. Now that the euro has been "fixed" (emasculated?) so that they can inflate away sovereign PIIGS debt, the Fed's inflationary work will be uncovered for all to see. Many are under the impression that more QE is coming, but that's not necessary for gold to resume its rise. The leaven is already baked into the cake.