Gold: Last Asset Standing

Gold will be the last asset-class standing, says legendary analyst Richard Russell...

LEGENDARY ANALYST and newsletter writer Richard Russell began publishing his Dow Theory Letters in 1958, and has been writing the Letters ever since, never once skipping an edition.

Gaining wide recognition via a series of technical articles he wrote for Barron's magazine from the late-1950s to the '90s, Russell tipped Gold Mining stocks ahead of the 1970s bull market, calling the bottom of the great 1972-74 bear market and the beginning of the great bull market which started in December 1974.

Here, in a note for the Gold Report, Richard Russell notes this week's critical action in the Dow Jones Industrial Index and brings his fifty-plus years of experience to bear on the current market.

THE VERDICT, at long last, is in. Thursday this week, the D-J Industrial Average closed below its November 20 bear market low.

In so doing, the Dow confirmed the prior breakdown of the Transportation Average. The two Averages jointly closed at new lows today, thereby signaling that the great bear market remains in force.

According to Dow Theory, neither the duration nor the extent of a bear market can be predicted in advance. However there are some useful hints. Most major bear markets end with stocks at "great values" or as some Dow Theorists put it, "below known values".

This has meant in the past that price/earnings ratios for the Dow and the S&P have fallen to single digit numbers. It has also meant that dividend yields have moved into to the 5%-6% zone.

According to the latest Barron's, the P/E ratio for the Dow is now 18.62, and reads 17.90 for the S&P. The dividend rate for the Dow is now 3.98%, for the S&P it is 2.78%. These are hardly the kind of figures I'd expect at a great bear market low. With the bear market reconfirmed, I'd advise subscribers to be largely out of common stocks (not gold stocks) and in cash, T-bills or gold, physical Gold Bullion if possible.

The country is now at economic WAR. My objection to "paper gold" or listed gold items is that the government could halt trading in all gold items if it wishes to. The government is at all-out WAR against deflation and possibly at war with rising gold.

With a great bear market in force, we're forced to think in terms of individual or family survival. My subscribers and I are on our own now, dealing with a government that is attempting to print itself out of a bear market. More inflation on top of a bear market that was created out of debt and inflation will not work, at least I don't see it working (nor does the market).

Gold will be "the last man standing" – as has been the case for thousands of years.