Ron Meisels
Augusta Gold
G-T
TOP PICK
Jul 29, 2005
Hit an all time high in late 2003. Fell back and stayed in a base building for about a year and now it's starting to move and make new highs again. Believes the price of gold is going higher and could possibly be getting to $500. Gold is contra cyclical and will do well in the 2nd half of the bull market which is where we are now.
It could be 10% higher than today. He would prefer an equal weight gold ETF. G-T is probably a slight underperformer but he would buy gold stocks on a pull back.
Today's merger with Newmont Mining Synergies will improve their margins. But he would sell--he doesn't like gold in general and this is a selling opportunity.
If Barrick buys Newmont and Goldcorp walks away with $630 million because the Newmont-Goldcorp deal (of last month) doesn't actually go through. Can GT shareholders kick the GT board out--the board who gets a hefty package, but not the shareholders? He can't comment on this though many are asking this question. About this deal, we haven't seen gold M&A deals for a while. From Barrick's point of view, this is an obvious plus. Many are surprised that this is the deal.
It is oversold as a consequence of being belittled by Barrick. It has a paucity of tier 1 assets. The trend of mergers of in the industry is going to be good for the company.
Big relationship to US dollar, so dollar strength means gold weakness. Gold gets seasonally weak right now. May go sideways for a while. If it breaks the downtrend, it can accelerate pretty quickly. Second seasonality is in the summer, but could happen earlier. Timely to buy right now, and wait for the next shot up.
He's never really owned Goldcorp, Newmont and Barrick. The share appreciation would come better from an Agnico Eagle or Kirkland Lake which have growing reserves, great management and low production costs. He stays away from companies like Goldcorp or Barrick or Newmont. In fact, Aginco has outperformed Goldcorp and will be self-sufficient by 2023. It pays a good dividend and they continue to grow overall.
(A Top Pick Aug 20/18, Up 2%) This merged with another company and was taken out. He still likes the gold space. Central Banks are beginning to run on fumes and have no idea what problems they are causing for investors down the road. Gold is good in deflationary times and even better in inflationary times -- it doesn't do well in between.