Thursday, February 23, 2012

Why Gold is a buy again! Still!

On 28 Dec 2011, when gold touched a low of USD 1,520, I had suggested to buy more and more Gold...in US dollars or AUD or CAD so you get double profits of appreciating currencies as well as rising gold!

Today Gold has touched USD 1,760, which is a profit of 15.7%, or a minimum of 14% depending on price purchased or if purchased on average basis.... in less than 2 months!

All below mentioned reasons of gold price rising continue to remain valid.

However, another reason is bailouts of banks, airlines, oil companies, real estate companies and various other companies globally by the Governments.

The more the Governments 'bail out'or give loans to companies, the more the gold will rise.

Please see attached chart of Monetary Base of the USA. It was rising gradually from 1981 until 2008 when the bail outs began in USA.

The monetary base jumped from USD 863bn to USD 2.66 trillion which is a rise of USD 1.8 trillion and is 208% rise in 3.5 years.

Since June 1994, when monetary base was at USD 404 bn, it took 14 years during a BOOM period with Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which took 3.5 years in percentage terms to rise by an equivalent percentage.

This debasement of money and printing of dollars by the US Govt at a much faster pace has led to more and more money supply in the system and despite ZERO interest rates, the global trade or global GDP refuses to rise significantly while gold continues to rise at a similar faster pace.

In 2008 until 2010, US Govt bailed out their companies, In 2011 and 2012 Europeans and China bailed out their companies, now India is just starting up bail outs of their own companies. Just the country changes but the bailing out continues with global monetary base rising faster than ever!

This is a solid reason to buy more and more gold if you believe US and Europe and Japan etc will continue to spend more to make GDP grow, or bail out failing companies or give tax reductions to public, or reduce unemployment then gold will be the investment that will continue to rise.

If you missed the boat in Dec, there is still time to buy gold to hedge your positions, not against inflation, but the growing list of global companies who get bailed out and hence reduce the purchasing power of USD and all major currencies, which can be protected by investing in gold and silver only, which do not have Govt risk and combined with the buying power of the ever rising population, the price of gold/silver continues to rise.

It used to be US and Europe were large consumers of gold and other metals and commodities which has now been replaced by China, India, Brazil and other Asian nations over the last decade.

Stay tuned....and buy Gold and protect and grow your hard earned savings!


----- Original Message -----
From: MANOJ NATHANI
At: 12/28 12:38:59

Gold is down today to USD 1,587 due to new rules from China to control the gold speculation.

If we look at the attached chart, we see that Gold has been consistently rising since 2001, when it touched USD 280 levels.

We can also see a downward blip in Sept 2008 when the world's financial system was almost about to collapse and only Lehman Brothers went bankrupt but various other 'insolvent' banks of the USA were allowed to continue at the cost of the American taxpayer and the '99%' masses who continue to pay the price for the high handedness of the American banking system through more debt, more job losses, weak real estate pricing, no lending, weak stock and bond markets and insolvent businesses. We have entered a vicious cycle of DEBT - BANKRUPTCY - JOBLESSNESS -

Until Lehman collapsed in Sept 2008, we can see gold rising gradually, however, thereafter, as Governments around the world started printing more and more money, Gold started rising in a parabolic manner instead of a gradual arithmetic rise. Hence, we can actually time the rise of gold and show high degree of correlation to the 'bailing out' of privately owned banks and other large financial companies despite allegations of wrong doing and fraud.

Gold has always remained over its 50 day average and now is at that level again. This level indicates strong support and gold has remained above this level since 2002 except for the 5 month period Aug 2008-Dec 2008.

Of course, if gold drops below its 50 day average of USD 1,583, then it may go slightly more lower, but chances are quite low.

Next support of 100 day average is at USD 1,414 and 200 day average at USD 1,173.

Meanwhile, Historical price of Gold and US 10 year bond yield:

Dec 96 - USD 367      6.41%
Dec 97 - USD 289      5.74%
Dec 98 - USD 288      4.64%
Dec 99 - USD 288      6.44%
Dec 00 - USD 272      5.11%
Dec 01 - USD 278      5.05%
Dec 02 - USD 348      3.81%
Dec 03 - USD 415      4.24%
Dec 04 - USD 438      4.21%
Dec 05 - USD 517      4.39%
Dec 06 - USD 636      4.70%
Dec 07 - USD 833      4.02%
Dec 08 - USD 882      2.21%
Dec 09 - USD 1,096    3.83%
Dec 10 - USD 1,420    3.29%
Dec 11 - USD 1,587 - as on date...US 10 yr Yield 2.00%

There is a strong negative correlation between interest rates on USD bonds with Gold, when USD 10 year bond yields go down, gold rises.

Meanwhile, doubling of Gold price took over 8 years from 1997 to 2006.

From 2006, gold doubled only in less than 4 years from 2006 to early 2010.

While from Dec 2008, it took only two years to double up, from  USD 882 to USD 1,600 levels today.

Point here is that gold is doubling up due to:

1. More money in circulation and debasement of the 'value of money' in almost all currencies. More money in reality means higher national debt, which is the cause of problems in Ireland, Greece, Portugal etc and ultimately leads to higher prices in precious metals. US debt is over USD 15 trillion and rising while Eurozone debt is at USD 3 trillion and rising. Japanese debt is legendary and the highest.

2. Rising global population of upto 7 billion now, which was 6 billion only until 12 years ago, 1999, hence rising demand.

3. Declining mining and exploration of all major commodities such as oil, gold, silver etc.

4. 'Safe haven' status of gold since it not backed by any 'unstable' or 'risky' sovereign Govt.

5. Until the 'real' rate of return, i.e. actual/nominal yield on US bonds less inflation which is running high due to oil and other increases such as fertilisers, food, pharmaceuticals, car prices etc. This applies to all countries where inflation is higher than both GDP growth or respective yields.

In my view, today and this week is a great buy of physical gold and averaging it on purchases on a weekly or bi weekly basis, at every dip and holding it over the next few years until the global crisis can be controlled and some sort of stability and growth is seen.

I expect gold to rise to USD 2,000 levels shortly as most major banks such as UBS (USD 2,050), Barclays (USD 2,000), Goldman (USD 1,810), Citibank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley (USD 2,200) have already said in their research over the last few weeks! Some of these banks may be wrong or trying to 'cheat' their clients, but all cannot be wrong!

Stay tuned....

Saturday, February 18, 2012

12.5% return in USD p.a. : From the land of Samba

Brazil is a country of charming people with less than 200m Brazilians.

It has significant advantages to most other similar sized large economies:

1. It's population is limited to 190m people approx. as per latest census data available.

2. Its unemployment rate is better than most countries at 4.7%.

3. Its currency, the Brazilian Real has appreciated over 55% in past 10 years since 2002, from 3.87 to 1 USD in Sept 2002 to 1.71 to the USD today.

Unlike most other countries such as India which has performed ZERO in past 10 years and is still at 49 level since 2002 until date despite all the volatility in between.

South African Rand has appreciated only 35% over past 10 years from 11 to USD to 7.71 today, unlike Brazil which is 55% up.

Indonesian currency has appreciated only 12% from 10,210 in 2002 to IDR 8,958 today.

Chinese Yuan has appreciated 23% since 2002, from 8.27 to USD to 6.30 today.

In the neighbouring region, Mexican currency has DEPRECIATED from 9 to the USD to 12.75 to the USD today with a currency loss of 41%!

Under this scenario, Brazil looks to be the strongest in the whole world if not in Latin America and the leader of Latin America.

Brazil has slightly underperformed over the last 2 years and this can be associated to the global crisis and the change of Presidency from President Lula to President Dilma on Jan 1, 2011. Still, its currency appreciated from 1.90 levels to 1.70 level today, an approx gain of 29% since Feb 2009 in past 2 years. Only its stock market index, Bovespa, has underperformed from 69,000 level 2 years ago to 65,000 level today.

Some tight regulations such as 2% tax on any new incoming funds to reduce international hot money flowing into equity and fixed income markets in order to bring only serious investor money to Brazil in 2009 and then in 2010, thereafter, this tax was increased to 4% and further to 6%.

However, in Dec 2011, this tax rate was eliminated and brought down to zero which brings us to the New Year in 2012, today, and the immense opportunity that lies ahead of us.

4.
Some comparable USD bonds issued by Rep. of Brazil (BBB rated) are below:

Issue Date    Maturity Date    Coupon    Price Today    Yield
Jan 2006      Jan 2037               7.125%       USD 139        4.50%
Jan 2005      Feb 2025               8.75%        USD 151        3.75%
March 2001 Apr 2024               8.875%      USD 152        3.58%
Jan 2000      Jan 2020                12.75%      USD 168        3.00%

You will observe that as the issue date comes closer to today and the Brazilian economy does better - as reflected by the rising strength of its currency - the COUPON keeps declining, which is another indicator of strength. This shows that Brazil is now able to borrow money at much cheaper rates than it could 10 years ago!

This cannot be said most other countries including Western Europe which sometimes are paying more and sometimes just little less, but certainly not down from 12.75% in 2000 to 4.5% levels today over the past 10 years alone!

5.
Not only Brazil's population is lower, hence it has lesser social problems than other countries, but its banking and real estate sectors are quite robust.

For example, the Debt to GDP ratio of Brazil is close to 66% which is 93% for USA, 220% for Japan and 142% for Greece! India is at 69% while Germany is at 83%.

This makes Brazil much more nimble and with potential to rise much more faster in the coming years ahead.

Brazil's GDP growth is estimated to grow at 3.50% in 2012 on a GDP size of USD 2.1 trillion valued at USD 73.5bn. In 2011, they averaged 3.72% and in 2010 was 7.57%.

6.
The Chart of Rep. of Brazil 2041 maturity bond is attached.

This was issued in Oct 2009 and is trading at USD 117 level with a yield of 4.50% in USD p.a. This is the latest bond in USD issued Govt of Brazil in 2009.

Its size is USD 2.9bn with a rating of BBB by all 3 agencies.

Minimum size is USD 100k and is guaranteed by the Govt of Brazil.

It had gone down below USD 100 until May 2011, however, since then has robustly risen to USD 117 today.

I believe it is a good buy, despite the longer dated maturity because as we have seen in Ireland, Greece or Dubai, that countries cannot fail though their problems may continue and the sooner they resolve their problems, then the bonds do come back if issued by Govt or Govt entities.

However, in the case of Brazil, they have no problems at all, according to data shown above, and therefore, their long dated bonds should continue to rise.

I expect them to rise to USD 125 levels which is 8% capital gain plus 4.5% interest for a total potential yield of 12.50% within one year.

I also expect the bond price to rise to USD 135 levels within 3 years while generating 4.5% p.a. coupon for a TOTAL cumulative yield of 30.50% within three years in USD.

Over the next 5-7 years, this bond has the potential to rise to USD 150-155 levels while generating 4.5% p.a. return annually.

This has happened in bonds issued previously so there is no reason it will not happen in this bond mainly due to the strong fundamentals of the Brazilian economy.

Stay tuned...