From the November 2011 Hard Rock Analyst Journal
Plus ca Change.....
Another month, another euro area country in the hot seat... Italy already had issues thanks to the buffoonery of its former Prime Minister and it's now the target of bond vigilantes. No real surprises and no mystery about the steps the euro area countries have to take. What steps get taken and how forcefully is the issue as it has been for months. It's still all politics.
Unless the EU fixes everything in the space of the next two weeks plenty of tax loss selling should be expected. Notwithstanding that, we're finding the buying in the bulk material space and strengthening oil price encouraging. There are clearly those that expect a resolution in Europe.
Economic numbers closer to home continue to improve, if slowly. Manufacturing has been a pleasant surprise and China is promising to be a bigger importer. Outside of the bulk materials and oil though, it's still gold stocks getting the most traction. Volumes overall do continue to be light As we move into December and tax loss selling intensifies we may start seeing the volumes required to clean up share overhangs If that happened in addition to some debt resolution we could still see a decent yearend/ early 2012 rally. Stay tuned.
