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While the waterfall decline in gold stocks is painful for those of us already invested, the reality is that this is a setup we get a shot at only a few times in our investing life. It’s a cruel irony that those who are fully invested are now faced with the buying opportunity of a lifetime; however, it would be a shame for anyone to miss this blood-in-the-streets opportunity.
So writes Jeff Clark in edited excerpts from his original article* entitled A Rare Anomaly In The Gold Market.
[The following article is presented by Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com and may have been edited ([ ]), abridged (…) and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.]
Clark goes on to say in further edited excerpts:
Book Value
Mainstream analysts sometimes talk about book value, especially when a stock appears cheap. Book value (BV) is a metric that, in essence, sets the floor for a stock price in a worst-case scenario. BV is equal to stockholders’ equity on the balance sheet, and is the theoretical value of a company’s assets minus liabilities – sometimes you’ll hear this called “net asset value” (NAV) – so when a stock price yields a market capitalization (share price x number of shares outstanding) equal to BV, the investor has a degree of safety, because if it dropped lower, a buyer could theoretically come in, buy up all shares, liquidate the company’s assets, and pocket the difference.
Price to Book Value
Price to book value (P/BV) shows the stock price in relation to the company’s book value. A stock can be considered “cheap” when it is trading at a historically low P/BV. Or, even better, it can be considered objectively ” undervalued” when it is trading below book value.
Gold Producer Book Values
Given the renewed sell-off in the gold market, I wanted to see if gold equities were getting close to book values, not just because it would point to opportunity but also the margin of safety it would imply.
We analyzed the book value of all publicly traded gold producers with a market cap of $1 billion or more. The final list comprised 31 companies. We then charted book values from January 1, 2007 through last Thursday, June 27 (index equally weighted). Here’s what we found.
(Click to enlarge)
Gold Producer Stocks Dramatically Undervalued
The above chart makes clear the current dramatic undervaluation of gold stocks.
- As a group, gold producers are now selling below their book value.
- Based on this metric, gold stocks are now cheaper than they were at the depths of the 2008 waterfall sell-off.
- The chart doesn’t show it, but gold stocks were trading above book value (about 1.1x) when gold bottomed at $255.95 on April 2, 2001, which was the beginning of the bull market.
Here’s an even more dramatic fact:
- We went back as far as 1997 and could not find one episode where gold producers as a group traded below book value – and the late ’90s was known as the “nuclear winter” for the gold mining industry!
Needless to say, we’re in rare territory.
Don’t Miss This Blood-in-the-Streets Opportunity
Does this mean we should buy now? To be sure, book values fall when precious metals prices decline, and costs have risen substantially since 2001 as well, so it’s possible values could fall further. In that scenario the relationship between stock prices and book value would remain in rarified territory, making the anomaly even more appealing to a contrarian investor.
While the waterfall decline in gold stocks is painful for those of us already invested, the reality is that this is a setup we get a shot at only a few times in our investing life. It’s a cruel irony that those who are fully invested are now faced with the buying opportunity of a lifetime; however, it would be a shame for anyone to miss this blood-in-the-streets opportunity. Our future profits should be higher by an order of magnitude, when the market does turn around…
The extent to which each of us is able to take advantage of the opportunity shaping up is of course dependent upon our personal set of circumstances. For some, this might mean doing nothing; for others, it might mean being bold for the first time in their life. I suspect most readers fall somewhere in between.
Conclusion
The opportunity is clear: book values for gold producers are at rarely seen levels. Gold stocks may not reverse tomorrow or could get even cheaper when producers start reporting this quarters financial results, but history shows this opportunity will not last forever. It will probably never occur again in this cycle. Once gold turns it should be fantastically profitable.
[Editor’s Note: The author’s views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.]
*http://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/a-rare-anomaly-in-the-gold-market (© 2013 Casey Research, LLC; All rights reserved)
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Book value ratio of 1.1 in 2001 when gold at 255$, but what was tge average cost to produce that ounce of gold compared to the average of 1200$ today? Some were still profitable at 255$. How many are now profitable?