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Following another sharp sell-off early in the week,
amid signs of strong physical demand in Asia and the U.S. at recently lower
prices, gold and silver bullion both posted their first gains in five weeks,
starting to make back some of the ground that was lost during a miserable
September, during which time the price of gold tumbled 14 percent and silver
plunged 31 percent.
For the week, gold rose 0.9 percent on the spot
market, from $1,624.80 an ounce to $1,638.70, and silver jumped 4.3 percent,
from $29.97 an ounce to $31.27. The gold price is now down 14.8 percent from
its summer high but maintains an impressive gain of 15.3 percent for the
year; silver is down 36.8 percent from its spring peak, now up 1.2 percent in
2011.
Anecdotal accounts continue to be heard about hedge
funds being forced to liquidate their winning gold positions last month in
order to cover losses on their stock holdings and of big premiums being paid
in Asia due to supply bottlenecks as dealers continue to have difficulty
locating enough physical metal to meet demand at current prices.
As was the case back in late-2008, it is now
commonly believed that the need for liquidity by futures markets traders was
the primary reason for the recent sell-off. Now that the gold price has dropped from above
$1,900 an ounce to below $1,600 an ounce before staging a modest rebound over
the last week or so, strong physical demand from Asia and elsewhere has put a
floor under prices at about the $1,600 level, with the gold price ultimately
going higher.
Since we are now more than a month into the current
correction, it seemed like a good idea to see how this one stacks up against
others that we've seen over the last ten years. The result is the graphic
below (click to enlarge image).
It should be clear that, based on the 2006 and 2008
corrections, we could have much further to go; but, if the only example of a
post-2008 correction occurring in late-2009 is followed, then this correction
may have already seen its lowest lows.
Looking closer at the 2009 correction reveals that
it wasn't much of a correction at all, taking just 45 days to retrace 12.7
percent from the December high to the February low.
The absence of significant price declines since the
2008 sell-off - a stretch of almost three years without a "typical"
correction of 15 or 20 percent - has been a defining characteristic of the
post-financial crisis gold market. It remains to be seen whether short
shallow corrections will be the new norm.
Based on the data presented in the chart that uses
the closing price of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSE:GLD), the current correction reached a 15.7 percent
decline on Thursday, September 28th - just 26 trading days after the rout
began. Those bearish on the yellow metal will be heartened to learn that if
the 2006 or 2008 corrections are to be equaled, we won't see a final bottom
for three to six months with anywhere from another 5 to 25 percentage points
decline in price.
My guess is that the current correction will be more
like that seen in 2009 rather than the more severe, prolonged moves down in
either 2006 or 2008.
Importantly, for those expecting a hasty return to the $1,900+ level, even
though the 2009 correction was shallow, it took a full six months before the
old price peak was again achieved.
Analysts also see higher gold prices in the year
ahead. Last week, Goldman Sachs cited low real interest rates in the U.S. as
a reason for raising their gold price forecast this year and holding firm on
their 12-month outlook for a gold price of $1,860 an ounce. A Bloomberg analyst's forecast for the gold price in 2012 rose from
$1,406 in June to $1,781 last week and Credit Suisse raised their price
target by 19 percent to $1,850 on Tuesday, while both BofA
Merrill Lynch and Barclays held firm with their one-year calls for $2,000
gold and Morgan Stanley raised its forecast for next year some 35 percent to
$2,200 an ounce.
Investment banks surely haven't been scared off by
the recent correction - neither should anyone else.
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