Bears In Them Thar Gold Hills (GLD, ABX, NEM, AUY, AU, RGLD)

What is the one sector that is viewed as a safe haven in scary times?  Outside of water it’s gold, and gold is easier to invest in than water as far as the stock market is concerned.  But when you get a worry that we might be heading into a ‘deflationary environment’ gold isn’t viewed as a safety net.  On last look, the shiny metal itself was down to $661.00 and was almost $672.00 when I woke up this morning. The DJIA fell almost 400 points to 13,270.68.  Check this out:

The StreetTracks Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD), the ETF that tracks gold prices on a 1:10 ratio of the price of an ounce of the shiny metal, fell 1.95% to $65.46. 

Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE:ABX) fell almost 1% to $33.77, still with a $29.2 Billion market cap.  Goldcorp Inc. (NYSE:GG) fell 3% to $24.92 and AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) fell 2.6% to $37.45.  Yamana Gold (NYSE:AUY) fell 3% to $10.92, and it’s one of Jim Cramer’s favorites.  Newmont Mining Corp. (NYSE:NEM) is back to mostly being unhedged and it fell 2.15% to $41.42. 

Royal Gold Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD) was one of the few bright spots with a 0.4% gain to $31.52, mainly because of a press release of an amended merger pact with Battle Mountain Gold.

Jon C. Ogg
August 9, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.