Physical gold bullion is much less available than most people consider.
In fact, in the event of manic speculative buying, physical gold bullion may even become unavailable!
Consider this…
There are approximately 6.4 billion ounces of physical gold above ground. That’s basically all the gold ever mined.
But most of this gold exists in the form of jewelry. The World Gold Council figures about 60% of all gold demand last year came from the jewelry industries.
Jewelry is not an investment-grade precious metal product. And that’s generally because it’s typically not available in a standard investment purity or denomination.
Moreover, there’s a lot of fake jewelry on the market. Most modern-day gold bullion, meanwhile, has security features that ensure purity and weight.
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| The new Canadian Gold Maple Leafs feature security though the Royal Canadian Mint’s Bullion DNA program. Each micro-engraving is encoded with a unique “Bullion DNA” code that can be used to authenticate them by scanning them with the Royal Mint’s proprietary Bullion DNA reader. | ||
Point is, only about 40% of all the aboveground gold is minted in a standard investment purity or denomination that would be appropriate for investment and trading.
That would mean there’s only about 2.6 billion ounces of this gold bullion available right now. And with 7.4 billion people on the planet, there’s less than 0.5 oz. of refined gold in standard investment-grade bullion available per person.
Investment-grade gold is much less available than most people think. And in the event of a mass speculative rush into the gold market, it’s completely within the realm of possibility that purchasing physical gold bullion may not even be an option for large buyers like banks and institutions.
In the event of a physical limitation on the available of gold bullion, trillions of dollars will go crashing into the gold mining sector. There simply will be no other place to put gold investment money.
The precursor to this tidal wave of money into the gold and precious metal equity sector will be clear…
The moment the waters recede from the coastline will be when the gold ETFs announce they’ll no longer be able to purchase enough physical gold to keep up with demand. One week later, gold stocks will be long past their 52-week highs, whatever they may be at that point.
There are two sides of the gold equity markets that will perform the best:
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The very large international gold producers, like Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX), Goldcorp (NYSE: GG), Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM), and royalty companies like Royal Gold (NASDAQ: RGLD). That’s because large banks and institutions are going to focus their purchases on the least-risky gold equities.
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The very small exploration and development gold companies because they offer the absolute most leverage.
Mid-tier gold producers will also do well. In fact, I believe all gold- or precious metal-related equities will continue to do well going forward. But I expect the biggest gains to ultimately have been realized in these two extremes of the gold equity market.
Now, finding those very large international gold producers to invest in is very easy work. It’s simply a matter of looking at market caps. But finding very small exploration and development gold companies with quality assets is a major hassle. Trust me, I’ve made an entire career out of it.
The fact is there are thousands of very small junior mining stocks. And most of these companies are virtually worthless. In fact, they’re worse. Owning stock in some of these companies can be more of a liability than anything.
Many of these junior mining companies have projects that will never produce a single ounce of gold. Others are flat-out marketing scams. So knowing exactly which junior mining stocks to most leverage gold mania speculation is extremely important. And that takes research.
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To that end, I’d like to point out some different primary resources for you to use in your own junior mining research.
EDGAR
The Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system is a mandatory document filing and retrieval system for U.S. public companies administered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Here you’ll find the official filings on any U.S.-based junior mining company.
SEDAR
The System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval is (similar to EDGAR) Canada’s mandatory document filing and retrieval system. You’ll find that Canada (specifically Vancouver) has become the world hub for junior mining. At one point, there were more than 2,500 junior mining companies listed on the TSX and TSX Venture exchanges. Here you’ll find the official filings from all of them.
InsiderTrading.org
This website shows insider buying and selling data from SEC Form 4 for U.S. public companies.
InsiderTracking.com
This website provides free (but limited without a subscription) insider buying and selling data on both U.S. and Canadian public companies. I’ve found that most other insider websites (like the one above) are a bit clunky to use. InsiderTracking.com is one of the easiest to use and navigate. I don’t have any affiliation with the company, but I am a subscriber, and I think it’s worth the money.
A little research can go a long way. There have already been several quadruple-digit gains from micro-cap mineral exploration stocks since the beginning of this year. Just during the first half of 2016:
- Rupert Resources (TSX-V: RUP) increased over 3,500%.
- Gold Mountain Mining (TSX-V: GUM) and West Red Lake Gold Mines (CSE: RLG) ballooned over 1,200%.
- Silver Bear Resources (TSX: SBR) and Colorado Resources (TSX-V: CXO) have also moved over 1,000% higher.
As I mentioned, in the event that a mass speculative rush into the gold market actually limits the availability of physical bullion, and trillions of dollars come crashing into the gold mining sector, these kinds of quadruple-digit gains could be the norm.
If you don’t have any exposure at all to the junior gold markets, I urge you to start today.
Luke Burgess
Energy and Capital
