In a lively interview with King World News yesterday, Sprott Asset Management’s Rick Rule said that gold represents a huge sale at its current price.
Rule begged market participants to focus on history rather than current market turbulence to inform their choices. He cited the seven or eight price retrenchments during the gold bull run that began in 2000.
Many of those retrenchments, Rule reminds, were between 10-12%.
When asked why he is so bullish about this current retrenchment in particular, Rule cast his glare on the usual suspects:
“I want to own stuff they [the central banks] can’t print…they make more and more valueless paper everyday but they do not make more and more precious metals.”
He mentioned the growing US deficit and debt, claiming that this fiscal irresponsibility is “tightening the springs of the gold market…and at some point those springs will break.”
He continued:
“I suspect that when we look back historically, this bear market will yield better valuations than the 2000 bear market or the 1992 bear market…for the simple reason that beginning from 2002-2010, these companies raised and deployed so much capital that the bargains we are currently taking advantage of are better capitalized bargains – more asset rich – than either the 1992 market or the 2000 market…seven or eight years out, this will have been the best buying opportunity in the entire bull market cycle.”
Mining Companies
The interview turned to the value of mining stocks, when Rule scoffed at those who consider them ‘toxic’:
“My net worth is a consequence of having the courage to buy markets like 1992 and 1999-2000 very, very aggressively.” In 1996, Rule allegedly paid more in capital gains tax than his total 1992 net worth.
“That’s the type of wealth that can be created by aggressive speculators in what are regarded by much of the public as ‘toxic’ markets.”
But Rule did warn that the junior market is bifurcating into groups of valuable and valueless companies, and that investors need to do their homework to find out which are which.
To listen to the full interview, click here.
