The April numbers are in and my Junior Resource Millionaire not only outperformed its benchmark by a wide margin, it also left the S&P 500 in the dust.

I was able to beat my benchmark by so much because many commodities and commodity stocks are having a lousy year (so far). So far, I’m having a great year. But you never know what is around the corner. Stay cool, my friends.

Via Marketwatch …

If your stomach is bleeding over whether this market is getting overripe, chill out already, according to this chart from Ed Yardeni.

Mr Yardeni writes: “The recent valuation-led rally in stocks isn’t irrational exuberance. Rather, it is a bullish rejection of the bearish and dreaded prediction of the Endgame prognosticators pontificating that the end is near or even imminent.” This illustration of the S&P 500 forward P/E ratio shows there’s room to run. Yardeni says if the metric just reverts to 2009′s peak, the S&P would move all the way up to 1,744.

Chart of average bull market duration, from Barry Rithholtz …

The rest of the piece the chart is in is worth reading, too.

Just thought I would take a historical look.

Updated chart

Gold edges down, investors cautious ahead of Fed statement

Why do I invest in gold? Sure, I like having dollars in my pocket — the more the better. I’m a capitalist — I LIKE capital. But I’m also acutely aware that while paper currencies come and go, the value of gold is eternal.

Gold will hold its value in this world long after our bones turn to dust. That’s why Wall Street despises it.

To mom-and-pop investors, gold is a real store of value; to budding entrepreneurs, gold shines with freedom. But to the cowards who rule the corridors of power, gold is a warning that the illusions, manipulations and degradations they force upon the weak cannot last forever.

Stay tuned.

Here’s a chart to watch … but it’s a weekly chart, so don’t expect big changes in a hurry.

(Updated chart)

Yeah, it looks pretty bullish. And in Junior Resource Millionaire, we added two positions today AND took double-digit percentage gains on another gold mining position. So, there is room for optimism.

But remember, there are plenty of charts on gold, some bullish, some bearish. Here’s one the gold bears are probably looking at right now …

(Updated chart)

Looking at the chart, you can see that gold is up against two kinds of overhead resistance. One is from the 20-day moving average, which is often seen as a dividing line between short-term bullish and bearish trends. The other is the gap between where gold opened on 4/12 and where it opened on 4/15. Bears will think (probably correctly) that there could be gold buyers trapped there, and so it will take significant effort to get gold over that level.

This would explain why the Commitments of Traders report for gold at the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Commodity Exchange (COMEX) shows small speculators net long positions are at their lowest levels in ages (see chart).  In other words, the small traders/general public is the LEAST BULLISH ON GOLD since 2001 – when gold was coming off a 20-year bear market.

The next week could be a  pretty interesting one for gold.  Stay tuned. And Junior Resource Millionaire subscribers – enjoy the gains on that position you banked today. We may buy it again, so SHHH!

Gold is up nearly 2% AGAIN today, and is up about halfway from its big rout that began in the second week of April. This is a tough time for investors, who have to ask themselves some questions. Feel free to answer below or email or tweet me your answers.

1. This is options expiration day for gold.  This is probably part of what is pushing up gold prices today, and probably means that gold prices will go lower tomorrow. But how much lower? And is this just a blip in gold’s recovery? Start polishing those crystal balls, kiddos. My question: Are you a buyer of gold’s next dip? Or a seller of this rally?

2. Here’s a chart Reuters put together showing where various analysts/companies put their year-end forecasts for the price of gold.

Reuters: Most of the 29 banking and brokerage analysts and consultants polled expected prices to find support and stay above the $1,400 mark.

Goldcore adds: The majority of analysts, 20 out of 29, expect gold to end 2013 above $1,450 per ounce and 6 analysts, saw gold above $1,650/oz by the end of 2013.

Interestingly, the majority are bullish at these price levels with average price forecasts for the year of 2013 much higher than today’s prices – at a mean of $1596/oz and a median of $1627/oz.

My question: If most banking and brokerage analysts are looking for higher prices in gold, is that bullish for the metal?

3. Many commodity gurus have turned bearish on gold, and funds are selling their gold ETF holdings. Not so mom-and-pop investors, who are buying the metal hand-over fist, at least when it comes to gold eagles. Here’s a chart I made using US mint data …

The red line is last year’s gold eagle sales month by month, the blue line is this year’s gold eagle sales. The most recent data on the US Mint’s web site shows 196,500 ounces have been sold so far in April, nearly TEN TIMES the 20,000 sold in the same month a year ago. What’s more, the US Mint recently suspended sales of its one-tenth ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins as surging demand overwhelmed supply.

Meanwhile, other countries – China, India, Japan – are seeing tremendous buying interest on the consumer level.

My question: Will consumer demand overwhelm institutional selling? Who wins in this battle, and who is left with regrets?

It’s been a crappy week for many reasons (thank you, The Onion, for stating the obvious).  And with the major stock indices looking more wobbly all the time, investors are wondering if they should sell and sit it out, or stick around to see if this is just a minor pullback.

Here’s a chart of S&P 500 action since the last major market pullback in 2011 …

(Updated chart)

The major uptrend is obvious, as is the pullbacks the S&P 500 has experienced. Those pullbacks have been as short as four weeks, and three times were 9 weeks long.  The pullbacks aren’t that deep, and they’re great set-ups for the next rallies.

Now, here’s what you have to wonder …

• Will the broad market pull back at all?  This current leg looks a little long in the tooth, but shorts have gone broke making that bet before.
• Would a pullback follow the previous pattern? That would be a best-case scenario for the bulls, because they’d get great set-ups into stocks they’ve wanted to buy more cheaply anyway.
• Would this be the beginning of a bigger, deeper correction? If so, all bets are off.

Just something to keep in mind. And if you’re interested in bull markets, take a look at natural gas.

(Updated chart)

The drop in gold prices is bringing out the bargain hunters, at least in the areas of the world where people know that gold has real value. Three examples …

“People are actually buying everything, gold bars, gold coins. People are rushing to get a hand on it. We have a problem meeting the demand because we are unable to get new supply,” said Brian Lan, managing director of GoldSilver Central in Singapore.

“There’s a huge backlog. It’s the same for silver. So far sentiment seems to be improving. Even the price has more or less stabilized,” Lan said.

(link)

Gold sales from Australia’s Perth Mint, which refines nearly all of the nation’s bullion, surged after prices plunged, adding to signs that gold’s slump to a two-year low is spurring increased demand.

“The volume of business that we’re putting through is way in excess of double what we did last week,” Treasurer Nigel Moffatt said by phone, without giving precise figures. “There’s been people running through the gate.”

(link)

“It has been very hectic in the last two days,” said Deepak Tulsiani, owner of Dwarkadas Chandumal Jewellers in Mumbai as he surveyed his 11 employees, who were busy with customers. “There has been a rush to buy gold because now people are getting jewelry 15 percent cheaper than before. It’s value for their money.”

Zaveri Bazaar, the largest bullion market in the country, buzzed with customers, who were browsing through collections of bangles, bracelets, necklaces and rings displayed in trays ahead of the wedding and festival seasons. Most buyers were women in groups of two or more, accompanied by a male who paid the bills.

(Link)

Not all shale oil and gas deposits are ECONOMIC shale deposits.  In fact, Bloomberg tells us …

In California, Occidental Petroleum Corp. was stymied by the Monterey Shale’s fault-riddled terrain. InPoland, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) stopped drilling because shale output was minimal. China’s failures with shale gas drove producers Cnooc Ltd. and China Petrochemical Corp. to seek expertise in North America.

In Ohio’s Utica formation, which runs eastward as far as New York, drillers frequently found the rock too dense and underground pressures insufficient to produce oil.

Read the rest here: http://bloom.bg/1177WQ8

This will put a spring in your step (maybe).  Courtesy of Bespoke Investment, we get this chart of the daily overbought/oversold reading for gold based on the number of standard deviations it traded above or below its 50-day moving average.

(Original)

The price of gold is currently trading more than 4.5 standard deviations below its 50-day moving average. That’s the most oversold reading since at least 1975.

There have not been very many occurrences where the commodity traded more than 3.5 standard deviations below its 50-day moving average. In fact, there have only been 10. So, is gold oversold? Certainly?  Will it bounce here? Probably.  Is that bounce play-able?  Also probably.

But is this THE bottom for gold?  Considering the kind of damage we’ve seen in gold in the past couple weeks, it’s unlikely to be a V-shaped bottom.  To be sure, the 2008 bottom was V-shaped, but that was over 5 years ago. Still, maybe we’re due.

(Updated chart)

Here’s a chart of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD: 131.07 -3.02 -2.25%) showing Fibonacci retracements, using the 2008 low as the baseline. We are near support. It can go deeper.  Still, a 50% retracement is common, and improves the odds that we will see a rally in the near-term.

The top line is the S&P 500, the bottom, more frantic line is investor sentiment. Lows in sentiment like the one we are seeing now are usually associated with the beginning of bull market runs.

Source.

Happy frickin’ Friday!

I’m about to show you five important charts that can have a big impact on your investments and the economy in general.

The U.S. trade deficit came in as a big surprise – to the mainstream media, anyway.  The seasonally adjusted trade deficit was $43 billion in February, down 3.4% from a revised $44.5 billion the previous month. It was also below analyst expectations that the deficit would rise slightly to $44.6 billion.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what’s happening under the hood of the headline number:

• The trade deficit narrowed as exports rose faster than imports.
• Capital goods exports fell but imports went up.
• Exports of industrial supplies remains near record high.
• Consumer goods remain static.
• Imports of autos rose to the fifth strongest on record.
• auto exports were the strongest since June 2012.
• Food imports rose.
• Petroleum exports rose while imported crude volumes declined.

Why did the trade deficit drop so much?  Crude oil imports dropped to their lowest level since 1996. The U.S. imported about 205 million barrels of crude oil in February, down nearly 56 million barrels from the previous month. Here’s a Bloomberg chart …

Why are we importing less oil? Because America is producing MORE oil. Here’s a chart I made using EIA data through March 29.

You can see that U.S. oil production is at a level not seen since 1992.

As encouraging as these numbers are, it’s best to remember they don’t go in a straight line. For example, look at exports of finished petroleum products. The data from the EIA only goes through January – look what happens at the far right of the chart …

Do you see how exports of finished dropped sharply – from 92,803,000 barrels in December to 72,273,000 barrels of finished products in January? What the heck was going on there? Were we using more of our own products, or was there suddenly less global demand?

The good news is that more recent data (from the balance of trade) shows that in March, US petroleum exports rose even as crude imports declined.

All together, what this shows is that the crude oil markets are very “noisy.”  Imports go up and down, so you can’t put too much strength in any one month. But we can look at the big trend, and the big trend is for the U.S. to import LESS oil and export MORE products.

And this is good for the U.S. economy overall.  According to EconomyInCrisis.org – hardly a friend of the Obama administration or its trade policies – each billion dollars of the trade deficit costs the U.S. about 14,000 jobs. So, a positive shift in the trade deficit should mean the creation of U.S. jobs.

And that brings us to the jobs number that Wall Street is having a heart attack about today. The economy added just 88,000 nonfarm jobs last month, according to the Labor Department. The expectation was for an increase of 200,000 jobs. American employers hired at the slowest pace in nine months in March.

So is it time to panic, or a bump in a noisy data stream?  In my view, the market was begging for a correction anyway – that’s behind the recommendations I’ve sent to subscribers this week, especially closing out the “Get Rich Rebuilding America” and “Post-Election Profit Guide” reports at big, fat gains.

This jobs news is a good reason to go lower. And there could be more bad news on the way. Let me show you one more chart. This is the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index (grabbed from Bloomberg this morning) …

As you can see, the chart is rolling over. That means we are getting more BAD economic surprises and less GOOD economic surprises. This, more than any of the noise we see on the financial channels, tells me that the Sequestration in government spending may be finally biting, and dragging on economic growth.

This still doesn’t mean we’re rolling into another recession. For one thing, if we really are in trouble, I expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to follow the path laid out by the Bank of Japan and start printing money like it’s wallpaper. Did you like QE 2 and QE 3? Wait till you see QE 4, 5 and maybe 6!

There is a certain area of the market that government money printing is usually very good for. And it’s an area of the market that is hated – HATED – right now. I expect I’ll be positioning my subscribers to make a pretty penny on this, if the trend holds true. But a lot can happen.  Rising U.S. energy exports could boost job growth in that part of the economy, and we know the housing market is making a comeback. Maybe this is just one month of weak data in employment, and the Fed won’t have to act.

I have a plan for that, too. I hope you’re making your own plans, and best of luck to you trading in this wild market. Have a great weekend.

CoreLogic’s home price index improved 10.2 percent in February, the largest year-over-year change in seven years.

Nevada led all states, with prices increasing 10.3 percent in February.

Arizona and California were No. 2 and  No. 3, and Phoenix and L.A. were first and second among large cities.

Here’s a map – the lighter the state, the better the change in home prices.

RGR did very well in the most recent first quarter. We took some licks early on in precious metals, notably with prudent exits from IMPACT Silver, Sandstorm Gold and later in the quarter, Corvus Gold. But we made it all back and much more in energy, with big wins in Breitburn Energy Partners Atlas Pipeline Partners, Star Gas Partners and Western Gas Partners (more than once), as well as other areas including Mine Safety Appliances, which sells mining equipment.

Bottom line: we tracked a gain of 14.62% in RGR in the first quarter, handily outperforming the S&P 500 and our benchmarks.  Those benchmarks include the Market Vectors Hard Assets Producers (HAP) and the DB Commodities Tracking Fund (DBC).

Individual returns will vary, depending on subscriber entry and exit prices, and commissions, if any.

The wins continued on the first day of the new quarter, as we banked four rounds of gains, including double-digit percentage gains on half a Primero Mining (PPP: 5.02 -0.17 -3.28%) position.

We raised the stop on Primero and other positions, so if we get the market pullback that most people are expecting, we’ll be okay. Then again, with everyone expecting a pullback, it’s very hard for the market to do that. Any pullbacks are being bought. Before you get too cocky, remember that the market USUALLY pulls back in April or May. Considering that asset prices have been pumped up by the Federal Reserve, the next big correction could be a doozy.

Best wishes for the second quarter. We ended the first day of the second quarter up over 17%, according to our official track (subscriber open and closed gains will differ). Huzzah!