Gold Seasonality: Time to Buy Gold?

by JDH on November 12, 2011

Now that we are through the mathematically interesting but practically unimportant 11/11/11, let’s talk about a statistical anomaly that is more relevant: gold seasonality.

(For those of you who missed it, 11/11/11 brought out all sorts of math nerds. My two favorite items of “11” trivia:

If you multiply a series of ones by a series of ones, the number of ones will be in the middle of the answer. So, for example, if you multiply six ones by six ones, the answer is:

111111 x 111111 = 12345654321

Second interesting math thing, good only this year: take the age you turn this year, and and it to the last two digits of the year you were born, and the answer is 111.

But enough about that. Back to our regularly scheduled programming).

Gold Seasonality

Most gold investors know that the price of gold tends to follow seasonal patterns. Here’s a chart from pragmatic capitalism that shows November and December as good months for gold:

Casey Research publishes a similar chart; they updated it this week in their Casey Daily Dispatch, a free publication:

It would appear that November is traditionally a very good month to buy gold.

Here’s one final chart, stolen by me from goldseek.com:

This is probably the best chart, because Adam Hamilton resets each month to a base of 100, so you can see the gain in that month. Again, November and December are strong months.

Why does gold have seasonality?

In theory, it shouldn’t. We all understand why the price of tomatoes goes down at the end of supply when supply is abundant, and then goes way up in the dead of winter when it costs more to import them. Gold is mined from the ground, and in most parts of the world it’s supply is not impacted by the weather.

Demand, on the other hand, is a different story.

One theory is that farmers in places like India harvest their crops in the fall, and invest their surplus earnings in gold. (Wisely, they aren’t big fans of banks). That causes an increase in demand. After harvest comes the traditional Indian wedding season, and gifts of gold are very important, also increasing demand.

Of course in North America we have the Christmas holiday season, which starts with “Black Friday” the day after American Thanksgiving. What does a husband give his wife that has everything? Jewelry. What’s jewelry made of? Gold?

A final explanation could be that investors are off on holidays for long periods in the summer, so when they return in the fall there is some pent up demand. The theory was less applicable this year, as gold enjoyed a big summer rally. Here’s the gold stock chart:

Gold stocks had a double bottom in early and late October, and have enjoyed a nice rise since then. Presumably action will be choppy, but I see no reason that gold stocks can’t surpass their September highs over the next few weeks.

So, what am I buying or holding?

First, I’m sticking with my winners. My biggest winner is CEF.A.TO – Central Fund of Canada, a nice simple way to hold gold. It’s chart looks just like the HUI chart above, but let’s take a closer look (click to enlarge):

Key points:

  • rally started in July, and went bust in mid September
  • a double bottom around the $21 level occurred on September 26 and October 20
  • since then both the 50 day and 200 day moving averages have been exceeded, so it’s onward and upward from here
  • the downtrend line that started with the peak just over $26 on August 22 is the next resistance level, but it’s quite possible that level will fall this week
  • from there a test of $26 is quite likely

I therefore conclude that this stock is a good one to ride this month and next.

I could show you charts all day, but they all look similar. My other favorites at the moment are:

AXR.TO – Alexco Resources Corp.

AEM.TO – Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd. (and by “favorite” I mean “crap, I wish I had sold this dog before they closed down one of their mines due to flooding, but now the stock is so low it’s got nowhere to go buy up, so I guess I’ll just hold until it recovers; I would only sell if I wanted to generate a tax loss to offset other gains)

CMK.TO – Cline Mining Corporation. (this is a coal play (not to be confused with the new album by Coldplay, which was beaten to crap over the last few months, but has doubled since bottoming out at a $1, so since the fundamental story remains unchanged, this is a good diversification against the precious metals)

FNV.TO – Franco-Nevada Corp. (love it, and I love the warrants for even more leverage)

FR.TO – First Majestic Silver Corp. (I’m up over 50% on this one, so it’s a good junior to play)

FVI.V – Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (nearing a new high, so could be poised for a break out)

K.TO – Kinross Gold Corp. (one of my worst performers, but since it is one of the few senior producers that have not yet broken out, I’m holding, and I may roll the dice and average down and add to my position)

G.TO – Goldcorp Inc. (love it; I expect a new high in the next few weeks)

PHS.U.TO – Sprott Physical Silver Trust

SLW.TO – Silver Wheaton Corp. (very large holding of mine; it’s volatile, but I love it).

SMD.V – Strategic Metals Ltd. (I don’t own it yet, but I’ve got my stink bids in at $1.55)

SVM.TO – Silvercorp Metals Inc.

I have a few other small juniors on my list, but you get the idea.

Last week I started to sell my losers. I prefer to do my tax loss selling now, so I can re-deploy the cash on better prospects. If gold and silver seasonality acts as expected, I presume the next six weeks will be quite profitable.

Time will tell.

Thanks for reading; see you next week.

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