Video market round up for the week ending Friday, 12th July 2013

A week ending round up of the markets from Steve Briggs YouTube channel.

Included in this video is a look at Pearson, Fresnillo, Royal Dutch Shell, Weir group, Salamander Energy and RPS group.

Links:

Steve's YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/user/sjb5555.

Useful charts and analysis can also be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevebriggspics/

FTSE100, worst performers.

Fear appears to be back in the market whether it is QE tapering, China growth, China banking system, there's always something to give the markets the excuse to fall once sentiment has changed. It would seem sentiment has changed in the last month or two which is hardly a surprise given the bull run before. Whether this is just a correction that will see markets revert later in the year to their usual seasonal bullishness cycle remains to be seen.

For now, it is worth having a look at the FTSE100 worst performers because despite all the bullishness about some companies and sectors have seen crash level falls.

6 months

Fresnillo  -53%
Antofagasta  -39%
Randgold Resources  -33%
Anglo American  -31%
Rio Tinto  -26%

3 months

Fresnillo  -35%
Randgold Resources  -26%
Anglo American  -24%
Glencore  -24%
G4S  -20%

30 Days

Aberdeen Asset Management  -27%
Arm Holdings  -23%
Severn Trent  -21%
Old Mutual  -20%
Vedanta Resources  -20%

Video market round up for the week ending 7th June 2013 (up to 6th June)

A week ending round up of the markets from Steve Briggs YouTube channel.

Included in this video is a look at several FTSE100 and 250 stocks, potential trading tips, support and resistance points, etc. Stocks covered include Fresnillo, RPS Group, Royal Dutch Shell, Salamander Energy and Weir Group.

Links:

Steve's YouTube site http://www.youtube.com/user/sjb5555.

Useful charts and analysis can also be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevebriggspics/

Gold and silver miners hammered

It was bad enough that China disappointed the market with lower growth numbers coming in, the mining sector in general has been in a slump for some while, today they were hit hard again, but some of the biggest hits were the gold and silver miners. Gold itself had one of the biggest daily falls in a long time prompting some to suggest that it is now in a bear market, time will tell on that one, but the gold miners are now heading for falls that some haven't seen since the dark days of 2008.

Today's % falls:

Petropavlovsk - 24.01%
Fresnillo - 15.16%
Hochschild Mining - 8.37%
Randgold Resources - 8.33%

3 month change:


Petropavlovsk - 61.56%
Hochschild Mining - 46.62%
Fresnillo - 38.84%
Randgold Resources - 22.84%

More speculative African gold mining smaller company Avocet Mining is down 74.33% in 3 months.

Given current sentiment around gold and silver appears to be more negative, it is difficult to say if any of these represent a bargain at current levels or not. Technically, the charts look awful and patience is probably needed to wait for some more positive signs that the falls are over. These can go up as quick as they can fall, but right now it is guesswork as to when that turnaround is coming.

UK mining sector, what is it telling us?

Although the market has been steadily rising for some time it is perhaps difficult to believe that there have been losers also, most notably in the mining sector. This sector has seen quite a sell off in the last month, but some have been falling pretty relentlessly for longer than that. Here's a list of some FTSE350 mining stocks and their percentage fall in the previous 3 months.

African Barrick Gold -59.84%
Kazakhmys -57.54%
Hochschild Mining -45.59%
Fresnillo -30.50%
Antofagasta -30.47%

The 3 month change in the index is -15.94% and it is down -15.42 over the previous 12 months.

So, some hefty falls there and you do wonder if the world economy is in recovery mode, why are so many miners, the providers of commodities that go into making everything falling so steeply? Some of these are gold and silver miners, a sector that can be very volatile even when the price of gold is steadily going up, but the falls seem to be across the board even when good individual company results are produced.

Bargain hunters may well want  to keep an eye on the sector, but you may also want to watch for a recovery on the charts first as falls for the miners can be relentless. Get in at the wrong time and you can be looking at big losses. If anything this has been the sector to short, but could it also be a sign that the wider market may follow if economic growth forecasts don't live up to expectations as the year goes on?

Buying shares in companies that have a good story.

Back during the heady days of the tech boom it seemed to be quite easy to buy into the latest blue sky company that in no time at all would take off. If a company wanted to boost its share price all it needed to do was say it was setting up a website offering, or going into some area of "blue sky" technology and often the share price would be off to the races.

Those days of more or less putting your money into anything that sounded good and getting a great return in a short space of time are probably long gone, but there is something to be said for buying into a company that has a good story behind it. Even if the fundamentals may be stretched in the present, the hope of delivering something big in the years to come and enjoying the returns of a ten bagger or more is something that most investors perhaps can only dream about.

In one sense this explains the popularity of smaller companies and the traditional "penny shares". In another, the chances of finding a big winner in the FTSE100 is remote and only slightly higher in the FTSE250. It's not that it can't be done, but in the big cap indices you are often looking for something that has collapsed in a market panic and crash, which is still fundamentally sound and then comes back big time.

Back in the financial crash days of 2008 I recall the collapse in price of FTSE100 silver and gold miner Fresnillo. It's IPO price was a little over 500p in 2008, but fell all the way to around 100p in the market crash, today it stands at a little under 1800p. Trouble is, few probably had the bottle to buy when it was 100p, even though it was about as cheap as it is ever likely to get.

So, leaving aside recovery stories in the big cap shares, it is the smaller companies that are more likely to deliver the investing equivalent of a lottery win, although your entry fee in buying the shares will be a lot higher. A few potential blue sky stories that I like in the smaller company sector are IDOX and Monitise which have been mentioned before. Others worth investigating are IQE, Blinkx and Vislink. All have a good story behind them, all have an element of risk and can be quite volatile, they could be big or could fade away if things don't work out. They may not be 10 baggers, but if the good story works out they could be priced a lot higher in a few years time.