Barrick Gold (ABX)

Coral Gold shareholders may be keeping a close eye on drilling activity at the Renaissance Gold (REN) Ecru project which is located just to the north east of the Barrick Gold (Sunny; ABX) Robertson project. As John Kaiser explains in his November 7th Discovery Watch broadcast, Renaissance has optioned up to 70% of the project to Australia-listed S2 Resources which has a drilling program underway now that includes deep target holes.

Image source: Renaissance Gold

Perhaps it was no surprise with a pivotal US Federal Reserve interest rate decision pending, but hard assets were taken down 'hard' last week. Copper, gold, silver, platinum and oil crumpled heavily, and reached oversold conditions not seen in months, even years. However, experience suggests whenever multiple commodities hit the ground hard in unison, it is really an opportunity cloaked in panic. When I studied my own forecasts and saw they lined up well with this panic bottom idea, I began to focus on some resource stocks with star power.

Before appearing on BNN's Business Day AM with Amber Kanwar and Jon Erlichman today, we wrote up a note for the show covering some key trends in the market and how insiders are positioning themselves. The background note was fairly extensive and we couldn't possibly cover it all in 7 minutes on television. But, I thought it would be worth sending the material to our readers because it covers a lot of ground, focusing on both institutional and speculative situations in the market.

The replay of the interview is now on the BNN website. If you missed the interview, you can watch it here: http://www.bnn.ca/video/insider-trading-trends-in-canadian-heavyweights~...

In looking at start the start of October, we entered a period which began under a great deal of negative sentiment thanks to the volatility of the last few months and the financial media which always seem ready to trot out annual comparisons to October 1987 or various analogs to the 1929 stock market crash. We see this as a very bullish backdrop from a contrarian point of view. In fact, we are already seeing increasingly bullish signs across North American financial markets. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials have thumbed their noses at the mainstream media as they have risen 5% in the last week alone, one of the best starts to October ever!

Today, we're going to take a technical look at mining stocks which are an important element in the commodities market since their direction and movement tend to lead the price of gold.

With the recent volatility in world markets and currencies, market commentators and mainstream media outlets have become bearish on oil, gold and even the broad markets (think magazine covers screaming 'this is the end!').  The investor herd is running scared, as evidenced by $2.8 billion in outflows from U.S.-based domestic-focused stock funds two weeks ago according to Lipper data. CNBC talking-head Dennis Gartman weighed in, calling for a US bear market to begin.  Another commentator slagged gold, the 5000 year old metal of kings, as a mere “pet rock.”  And Mad Money’s Jim Cramer recently swore off oil stocks.  We see this outcry of capitulation as a perfect contrarian signal that is putting a profit opportunity of impressive size before investors.

As a former director, president and co-CEO of Goldman Sachs (GS*US), John Thornton had presumably developed a thick skin as well as a large wallet.

The uber-profitable U.S. investment bank - famously described as a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" by Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi - has been a favourite target of critics on Wall Street and beyond even before the financial crisis shook the foundations of U.S. finance. (Thornton retired from Goldman in 2003.)

We are pleased to celebrate the re-launch of Canadian Insider by sharing some thoughts on the market. 

We begin with a particularly noteworthy chart. The iShares Russell Microcap Index Fund (IWC*US) is a chart I have been following closely. It may surprise people that this fund which holds small cap companies in diverse sectors, has been outperforming the US and Canadian market for about a year and has in the past few sessions, broken out to a multi-year high - importantly, with very little attention from the financial media.