Hi Bill
I have to tell you that the metal and share price for the precious miners are getting me down, but technically there is nothing unusual in the current price correction.

Here are the BEV charts for gold, silver, XAU & BGMI. The data for BGMI is from the last issue of Barron’s, so it is a week old, but the other inputs are from 07 August.

(I asked Mark what BEV meant?...

BEV means "Bears Eye View" or a way of looking at a long series of data so that bear markets are expressed in negative percentages from their last all time highs and bull markets are flat lined at 0%. It irons out inflation from the data. I took it public 4 years ago with Le Metropole Café with my article "119 Years of Dow Jones Bear Markets." Here is the BEV or Bear’s Eyes View for the DJIA for 123 years from 1885 to 2008.

You can compare the panic of 1907 with the crash of 1987, in percentage terms. Neat eh? This is the only way one can compare long term data.)

Silver is more volatile than Gold as seen in the next two chart. On the downside, neither silver nor gold are doing anything they have not done since January 2000.

The data on BGMI is a week old, so the XAU gives a better picture of what is happening so far this week. But the PM shares look like they are only doing normal corrections within bull markets.

All and all there is no reason to hit the panic button on the PM shares or the metals. But I have to admit that people smarter than me sold some last January and are buying them back on the cheap today. I suspect that by Christmas these hard times will be times forgotten.

But how about the financials?

My BEV charts are doing a nice job of comparing the financial to the PM sectors. On 08 August 2008, I would rather have metals shares than financials, but take a look and make your own evaluation. There is too much bad news still to come in the credit and debt markets to bottom feed on the financials just yet. A few few more Bear Sterns and these charts could be looking at -80% from their last all time highs. If so, that means that a lot of good news coming for the metals. We just have to be patient – damn it.

Mark J. Lundeen