Precious Metals

Lower oil prices are aggravating financial and social stress in poorer OPEC states, particularly in Venezuela, where the government recently executed a gold-for-cash swap ahead of looming debt payments.

The Fed's decision to scale back intended interest rate hikes reflects economic reality.

The allure of gold equities has risen another notch following this week's dovish shift at the FOMC. After raising interest rates only a few months ago in the face of tight financial conditions, the Fed has backed down, acknowledging global headwinds. However, this flip flop also underscores the Fed's data dependency, which is fostering increased overall policy uncertainty. When combined with the unknown consequences and efficacy of negative deposit rates abroad, the allure of owning gold as a portfolio and currency hedge climbs. At a minimum, the inability of global growth to gain traction underscores that real interest rates, the opportunity cost of holding gold, are likely to stay extremely low, or negative, for a prolonged period. As a result, gold should stay well bid, despite the gains that have already accrued year-to-date. We reiterate our recent upgrade to overweight.

We differ markedly with the U.S. EIA's assessment of the near-term evolution of oil supply and demand.

The wide WTI - Brent differentials at the front of these respective curves will continue to incentivize crude-oil exports from the U.S. to European refiners, who tend to favor the light-sweet crude coming out of LTO plays.

Gold and gold stocks have bounced nicely in recent weeks. But from a multiyear perspective, both remain extremely depressed (top panel). While gold has had several false starts in recent years, a number of factors suggest that the latest rally will have durability. Gold raises in stature as policymakers lose efficacy. That is certainly the case now, as incremental QE has done little to foster a return to above-trend growth and a growing number of countries have resorted to negative deposit rates to reinvigorate anemic economic activity. Real interest rates, the opportunity cost of holding gold, which is a zero-yielding asset, are low and falling around the world and may need to fall further to reverse the decline in economic confidence. Importantly, gold has begun to rise in a number of currencies, suggesting that it is no longer just a play on a lower U.S. dollar. From a tactical perspective, sentiment toward the yellow metal is still pessimistic, despite the jump in gold prices in recent weeks. That is a contrary positive. As a result, we recommend an overweight position in gold equities, both as portfolio protection and also as a long-term hedge on monetary policy exhaustion. While the S&P 1500 gold index has only two stocks, the Global Gold Miners ETF (GDX) provides a liquid and diversified proxy for gold equities, which we will use to track gold stock performance. Please see yesterday's Weekly Report for more details.

As confidence in the sustainability of corporate sector profitability declines, the multiple accorded to equities should recede. Ten reasons to stay underweight the tech sector. Initiate an overweight position in gold shares.

The relief rally is not over, and could benefit from commodity and currency market movements. Oil prices likely are banging out a bottom. In general, however, a healthy dose of caution is warranted. Our bias is to sell into, rather than chase, rallies in risk assets.

A stunning 9.9 million-barrel build in U.S. oil inventories this week failed to arrest the upward climb in prices.

The remarkable admission by OPEC's secretary-general, Salem el-Badri, earlier this week that with "any increase in (oil's) price, shale will come immediately and cover any reduction" in output only hints at the larger impact of light-tight-oil (LTO) going forward.