Sunday, March 1, 2009

The mining stocks are starting to decouple

Since the November bottom the mining stocks as represented by the HUI are starting to decouple from the stock market. I've noted the last three daily cycle lows on the chart. In October and November miners followed the stock market down into those bottoms. At that point something began to change.

As the market rallied out of the November bottom the miners started to pull away from the market. At the next daily cycle low in January the general market weakness did manage to pull down the miners to some extent but on a relative basis they held up very well.

Then as the stock market continued to slowly fade the miners went on to make new highs.

Now we are heading into the next daily cycle trough. The market is making new lows but the miners are still over 70% above the November lows. The miners are holding up even better than at the last cycle low with only a mild pullback so far.

When gold's corrective move is over I expect the miners will follow it higher despite anything that's happening in the stock market.