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Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) announced its earnings results on Tuesday. The company reported $0.01 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.04 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $81.90 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $77.37 million. During the same quarter in 2011, the company posted $0.13 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 32.0% on a year-over-year basis…

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Very understandable moaning and groaning early in the day…

Bill,
Just curious if you still think mining stocks are prudent investments here. It's mindboggling to me to see YTD, HUI is down some 6%, GDX is down 4%, yet Gold is up 8% and silver is up 12%. Are mining stocks the only companies that seemingly report higher costs in their earnings reports? The latest punch monkey du-jour is CDE. CEO says they had to transition to open pit mining at one of their mines which raised costs (I notice that diesel costs have stopped going up, but I don't hear any mention of that in any of the mining companies latest earnings reports). I guess that's all the algo's need to here to put a hurtin' on these stocks. I see my P/L go down every day, and just wonder whether these stocks will never be allowed to go up, whereas the physical is allowed to appreciate (albeit controllably) every year.
Tim J

Tim,
Who could’ve thought 12 years ago that the gold/silver industry would be in a state of depression with gold above $1700 and silver above $32? The action of the share prices remains horrendous; brokerage business is way off; there is little money to do any deals; the share price action continues to be dreadful and so is the bullish sentiment towards the shares.

It would appear that much higher gold and silver prices are required to bring the

investment community our way. Each time I think the tide could be turning, it is not. However, one thing I am 100% sure of, we have a mania coming in the gold/silver share markets, which will somewhat resemble the Internet mania. The longer the gold/silver shares stay in the tank, the higher they are going to go in the years ahead.

As James Mc said about gold itself well before today’s big rally, "stay the course."
Bill

Dave from Denver on the early poor HUI action…

The HUI is red because CDE is down 21% and HL is down 7%. Those are two HUI components. CDE is deservedly getting clobbered, HL not deservedly. If CDE and HL were just flat on the day - i.e. they released earnings tomorrow or yesterday instead of today - HUI would up quite a bit. GDX is up almost 1%.

The better indicator is what gold and silver are doing. The argument that Romney was bad for the metals is beyond absurd. I think part of the October takedown was related to the possibility of Romney winning. The majority of the October takedown was related to the "self-fulfilling prophecy" of hedge fund black boxes programming October as a Sell month because October has a negative ROR.

It's my view that the snap-back affect of unwinding the "Romney" factor, unwinding the Oct ROR factor and the black boxes programming into their models the fact that November is one of the best ROR months has set up November to be a big month for the metals.

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Hecla ended the day down 38 cents to $5.95. Coeur d'Alene Mines fared much worse, losing $6.26 to $24.11.

The XAU is up 3.06 to 180.83. The HUI gained 5.46 to 475.84.

Just how lousy has the HUI been the past two trading sessions? It is only up a touch with gold up $40 off its Friday close.

One other plus for the day. Normally, gold sells off in Access Market trading following a big day like this one. While silver is stuck in the mud in Access Market trading, gold is up $2+ ... again, unusual.

We found out quickly about the importance of gold clearing $1700. Now it needs a solid close above $1720. A close above $32 was a first step for silver. The next key level is $32.50 and then $34.

Through this correction our camp has never lost faith in how strong the fundamentals are. We ought to see just how strong they are in the weeks ahead.

GATA BE IN IT TO WIN IT!