This Is the Final Liquidation of the Gold Bug - Mike Swanson (04/14/2013)

By Mike Swanson on Sun, 04/14/2013 - 09:39

What you are witnessing in the gold market right now is the final liquidation of the gold bug. On Friday gold fell $84 an ounce for a 5.38% drop while the HUI gold stock index fell 6%. Big bad moves. What is worse these drops have come after months of falling gold prices all while the S&P 500 has gone higher.

This has been a very painful time for gold and silver bugs. While they have lost money they have for the most part watched the broad US stock market go up, which means that while their gold positions went down in value those not invested in gold and in just about anything else made money while they lost money. It feels awful to do that. There is only one word for this - brutal.

Gold bugs have been holding on to their positions since gold last made a peak in the Fall of 2011. Since then the HUI has dropped 53% since it topped out on September 8, 2011. They have held on through some frightening declines and seeming bottoms that provided nothing but false hope. Last year we saw a potential bottom in the Spring and a rally in the Fall that led to nothing but another top and a nosedive into this year and into the present.

The reward for believing in gold has been to be punished over and over again. Many gold bugs bought into gold with the idea that it was a safe haven - that to buy into the US stock market or stocks anywhere else in the world was just too risky to do. Didn't the 2008 stock market crash prove that? Didn't the European crisis of last year show us all the risks of debt? Not exactly - as European markets have boomed since last summer with Greece of all places being the fastest gaining market in the world.

But many have said that only gold can go up. That only gold will provide a way to make money. They promised that if you bought gold you would come out a winner while one day everyone else will lose money. Now it seems that all of the promises have proven to not be true and that gold has been the big disappointment.

Now many are selling disgust. CNBC is saying that gold is done, because Ben Bernanke and President Obama have put the country on the verge of a coming economic boom. They say command and control economics is the future and anyone who doubts this by owning gold is a dinosaur. In the last month we have seen days in which good economic news comes out that gold has gone done in value. Then on days when bad news has been announced gold goes down too instead of doing up.

Then on Friday the Cyprus government said it would sell gold and give the proceeds to the European Monetary Union to finance its bank bailouts as it gives up its national birthright. It seems no news is good for gold. Goldman Sachs sent a note to clients last week telling them to short gold. Marc Faber told a reporter this weekend that he thinks gold could drop to $1,300 an ounce before bottoming.

Many are saying gold is over and there are some now that have held on to their gold positions for years and are now selling. Some are taking that money and moving it into the S&P 500 in obedience to the talking heads on CNBC and really more in fear of missing out on more stock market gains than anything else. If that turns out to be a mistake well at least they won't be alone - so for many there is emotional comfort in that. They'll lose money with everyone else and that isn't as bad as possibly being all alone in gold while your neighbors in their boring mutual funds make money not knowing what they are doing. But that is not prudent investment behavior.

And Goldman Sachs isn't always right. What Goldman Sachs does with its own money and what it tells clients can be two different things. Back in March of 2000 Goldman Sachs talking head Abby Cohen told people to keep buying Internet stocks just as they topped. In July of last year Goldman Sachs sent a note to clients telling them to SHORT the S&P 500 due to what they thought were signs of economic weakness in the US economy. That was a mistake and this call now to short on gold on their behalf will be proven to be one too.

"So what is going on then?" you probably are asking. Why is gold falling? What does this mean? Are all the economic risks gone? Is deflation coming? Is Fed QE the miracle CNBC's Steve Liesman says it is? Yes there are some who hate gold bugs, because they represent doubts over the Federal Reserve. They wish they would become extinct.
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