China to the Rescue
Contributed Opinion

1. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Getchell Gold Corp. 
2. Michael Ballanger: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own securities of: All. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector.
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At exactly the point in life where this septuagenarian scribe has finally figured it all out, the leader of the non-free world decides to pull a Bernankian feat to end all feats. Chinese Premier Xi Jinping decided to emulate the current leader of the free world, Fed chairman Jerome Powell, by opening up the Orwellian floodgates of yuan-printing, announcing measures intended to "save the private economy, stabilize real estate, and levitate stock prices."

As if schooled in the art of Keynesian debasement, the Chinese leader sent a painful message to the gold, silver, and copper bears when he committed to a stimulus package designed to snap the Chinese consumers out of their "savings funk." The average Chinese worker is up to his/her back teeth in real estate that has no buyers, no renters, and no foreigners in the hunt. Ghost cities built fifteen years ago are still sitting idle with 100% vacancy rates, debunking the well-used adage that "if you build it, they will come," which is patented nonsense.

China is in a world of hurt, and if you thought Jay Powell's 50-beep rate cut was an overreaction of sorts, Xi Jinping's move was an outright panic of the highest order. Revolution is not foreign to China, and if a few billion citizens decide that things had better change, the army will turn a blind eye to the historical process of change. Xi Jinping knows this, and that is why he hit the panic button, which was carefully honed and designed by Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan but upgraded recently by Janet Yellen and JayPo. When in doubt, follow the script that goes "Printer go brr-r-r-r-r" and forget about all else.

Copper

Mind you; I was blowing kisses from afar at the esteemed Asian dictator because of his insistence on placing gargantuan bids into the copper market. My top metal choice since 2023, copper has been in a corrective phase right up until early August when, thanks to the Japanese "normalization" efforts by their central bank, prices for everything suddenly got pounded as loans extended in Japanese yen began to go sideways forcing liquidation of virtually everything that day, including copper and copper stocks.

I re-loaded my favorite copper producer (the world's largest), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX:NYSE), that week thanks in no small way to panicking hedge fund managers.

Alas, falling smack dab into the category of "amazing how quickly things can change," I sold almost all leveraged positions this week in that beautiful company because the chart went from "gradual" — you know, a comfortable, lilting 45 ̊ angle of ascent — to "vertical" — which is where investors decide that they must own the name at any price and NOW.

It happened last May 21 when copper hit $5.199/lb, forcing me to exit stage left despite deeply engrained mistrust of my decision. Nine weeks later, I now feel justified after looking at two upside gaps and an RSI in the high 70s for FCX.

Make no mistake, I am a babbling, drooling copper bull, but my training as a trader forces me to make difficult moves at critical extremes.

Gold (and Silver)

I have no need to discuss gold because as all followers of mine know, gold is often in my trading account and sometimes in my futures account but it is always in my vault, right next to my Remington 170. I can make silly trading decisions around the miners and the odd bonehead whipsaw in futures but NOBODY messes with that physical metal sitting in my vault.

The big news from a technical perspective was the weekly close in silver futures which just registered a new 5-year high. I take all manner of flak from followers and colleagues on my usually negative bias regarding silver but if I am forced to count the number of times I have sold a "technical breakout" in silver that had all the mouth-breathing, hyperventilating silver bugs typing "TO DA MOON" followed by fifty exclamation marks in my 45-year career, I would be buggy-eyed.

However, the weekly close in silver looks different to me and while I do not profess to be the Stanley Druckenmiller of silver markets, I am sorely tempted to add to my positions.

What, you say? MJB putting out a Buy on silver?

Why not? I already own silver and love the way it looks and feels. Like gold, I have silver in my VAULT right next to the shotgun. My comments on silver over the past five years are all about trading, not stacking.

I see silver breaking out by the end of next week and mark my words, when it does, the Xiverse or Twitterverse (or whatever they are calling it these days) will be berserk with hundreds of hands in the air all claiming "first dibs" on the bullish silver call. Now, if it does not break our next week, I will not deflect tonight's comments in an effort to save face. Silver is the second-most manipulated market on the planet behind the U.S. dollar which includes the entire U.S. treasury bond market from the 2-yr. to the 30-yr. and everything in between.

The graphic shown above is a set of 100-ounce silver bars that I bought in 2016 for under $15/oz. after I won a judgement over some unpaid fees. I did not expect to ever be actually paid for work I had completed (with excellence) but once the money hit my account, I elected to refrain from tempting fate or teasing "The Deities of Happenchance" so rather than spend it on debauchery, I invested it in those silver bars. Up close, they are absolutely stunning, especially under the intensity of halogen lighting and when molded into fine jewellery adorning fine necklines or ear lobes not to omit slender, well-shaped wrists or ankles, silver is a marvel to observe.

I do not subscribe to the "global shortage" bunkaroo that permeates the internet and millions upon millions of inboxes via "bulk spam." I do subscribe to the opinion that of all the metals around the world, the one that can send grown adult males into an accumulation frenzy complete with wails and cries and large rivulets of tears and saliva is silver.

If you think gold bugs can get sorely animated, silver bugs resemble gold bugs on crack cocaine and Red Bull beverages. When the silver mania strikes, you want to be long with no access to a trading terminal for at least three weeks. The average length of silver spikes brought on by manic demand is about a month and if there ever was a market to avoid after the "gradual" incline metamorphoses into a "vertical" incline, it is silver when under accumulation by maniacal "HODL-ers" in need of a real life.

So, for all the silver-centric MJB-haters out there who thought I might be upset with last week's positive close, I never fight the tape, and I never fight the Fed, so with gold and copper making me look like a hero, I am afforded the right to be magnanimous and put out this bullish call on silver. May the gods of trading karma be with me.

Volatility

My subscribers must think I am a maniac. I have had a great year thus far thanks largely to being properly (or luckily) positioned in gold and copper but also in being prepared for the big drawdowns in April and August in the QQQ's and being long volatility at the end of July. I am again long volatility and modestly short the QQQ's via some October put options but I must confess that there is something about this market that has me completely spooked.

I was communicating with my lifelong friend who resides in the Ozarks (southern Missouri), where I did some bass fishing in the mid-'70s, and he agrees with me that something about the current market is not exactly "right."

When one speculates upon market volatility, you do not necessarily need to time market tops to the exact second. What fascinates me is how the rise in the VIX can act as an "early warning signal" for an impending drawdown in the major market averages. Since "front-running" a large institutional liquidation can be an SEC no-no, simply going long volatility absolves one of any paper trail related to a multi-billion-dollar rebalancing. This afternoon was the last day of the third quarter and usually it is pretty benign but the VIX, under 16 at 3:05 p.m., spiked to 16.97 by the 4:00 p.m. close all in the last hour.

THAT was no accident and it was why I added to my volatility positions on Wednesday, buying a farm wagon full of VIX October $15 calls at $3.00 only to watch them go out at $4.97 on the Friday bell.

To coin a Shakespearean sonnet, "something wicked this way comes."

Getchell Gold 

On Thursday, Getchell Gold Corp. (GTCH:CSE; GGLDF:OTCQB) put out a press release that served as a prequel to the upcoming preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") for the Fondaway Canyon gold project in Nevada.

I have had a number of inquiries in recent days as to the reason why investors have orphaned a company with 2.3mm ounces of gold in one of the best mining jurisdictions on the planet despite a move in gold of over $600 per ounce in 2024 alone. While there is no easy answer, I had a conversation this week with an investor relations executive that works with a number of the juniors miners and she echoed the same complaints that many GTCH shareholders have voiced.

What is it going to take to lure investors back into the exploration and development space?

Back in the day, it usually took a new discovery to turn the juniors back up. I recall in the winter of 1995 with the junior diamond scene in full disrepair after a number of disappointing testing results and the Kettle River scam sent investors running for the hills, a new NWT diamond discovery by Mountain Province sent that stock screaming northward while dragging the rest along with it. Even further back was the Hemlo discovery of 1981 that arrived in the middle of one of the worst bear markets I have ever witnessed (1981-1982). The shares of Golden Sceptre and Goliath Gold as well as International Corona saved clients from a losing year and recued the juniors for the next five years.

Here in 2024, there have been few new discoveries to excite the retail crowd and unless the space can demonstrate the ability to deliver capital gains, they will continue to flood to technology and crypto and "special situations" such as biotech as their vehicles of choice. In Getchell's case, the upcoming PEA may not excite the retail crowd, but depending on how "robust" the numbers are, it could quickly attract an intermediate-sized producer in the hunt for a "growable" deposit in a favorable jurisdiction with unlimited blue-sky potential by way of additional drilling. I cannot see anyone taking a run at Fondaway Canyon for less than $50/ounce which would be a fivefold increase in the stock from current levels.'

The PEA is expected "in the fall," which means it is "close." I look forward to seeing the numbers, which will once and for all put to rest any doubts about metallurgy or, more importantly, the economic viability of the Fondaway Canyon asset. It will be the catalyst required to bring new investors "over the wall."

Getchell Gold Corp. is a Buy, but then again, you have been hearing this monotonous drone for ages. . .