Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market

SOURCE:[The Gold Report] – Rick Mills isn’t looking for huge producers with so much overhead that they can’t profitably mine an ounce of gold. Instead, Mills, the publisher, editor and president of Aheadoftheherd.com, seeks out the smaller mines with low capital costs. That’s where the money will be made in the next two years, he tells The Gold Report.

The Gold Report: Rick, is this a good time to be buying gold?

Rick Mills: There are three key reasons to have exposure to gold bullion. The traditional reason is to protect against inflation. We’re printing money. More quantitative easing has taken place and inflation looks to be coming down the pike. I buy groceries. I pay for gas. I can see inflation. I firmly believe it’s going to get higher over the coming months and years. Buying gold as a protection against inflation is realistic.

The second reason investors have traditionally bought gold is as a safe-haven investment. There’s a lot going on in the world—from secession talk in the U.S. to turmoil in Israel, Iran, Syria, the South China Sea region and Turkey.

One of the things that most investors don’t know about gold is that adding a gold allocation to your portfolio, especially over the last decade or so, has provided substantial enhancements to the portfolio’s return.

Gold helps minimize the downside deviations in an overall portfolio. In 2002, the S&P 500 was down 23%. Emerging market equities were down 6%. International equities were down 16%. Yet gold was up 25%.

TGR: That was early in the bull run in gold.

RM: Even in 2008, the S&P 500 was down 37%, international equities were down 43% and emerging market equities were down 53%. However, gold was up 8%.

TGR: It felt like the end of the world in 2008. Gold has saved the portfolios of a lot of investors who were smart enough to start collecting it in 2001 and onward. However, there are investors who don’t believe that gold has the multiples now.

RM: It’s true. I believe gold producers have shot themselves in the foot because of their reporting methods. They use cash cost for reporting. In 2001 and 2002, miners were producing gold for below $180/ounce (oz). By 2005, cash costs had risen 45% to $250/oz. Data from research consultancy Thompson Reuters GFMS shows that world gold production costs for the first half of 2009 averaged $457/oz. In 2011, they were $657/oz. GFMS’ Gold Survey 2012 says it’s now $727/oz.

But if investors have been looking at that, they’ve been misled because that’s not really the cost of producing gold.

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Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market