Martin Armstrong - Gold Bear?

in #martin-armstrong5 years ago (edited)

In this blog I will point out some of the Martin Armstrong's gold trade calls throughout the last few years, calls that I find to be clear, or at least highly gravitating towards one side of the trade. So note that following are not all of his gold calls. I also placed my own commentary on some of the quotes. I posit he was mostly bearish in his writings.
Later I will point out some of the interpretations of his public and also private blogs, which can be found on the bitcointalk forum.

Following are only his public blogs, not private, and not his paid reports, and not what he said at the WECs.
(some of the quote emphases are mine)

Here is the 5 years gold chart so that we have a visual of the price movements (found at bullionvault.com )

https://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do

Points 1 and 2 on the chart are the approximate publishing dates of his blogs "Gold Into the Abyss?", and "Gold Headed Lower Under $1,000 into the Abyss" respectively, which I will also link to below.

Note that 10 years low is $1050, elected ~november 2015.
Nov 26, 2019 - price of gold is $1,459.

Blogs

Feb 17, 2015 Gold @ $1209.73
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/a-question-about-gold/

The metals will bottom on the Bechmark targets. Today, gold has collapsed again back down to the 1208 level. All the screaming, hollering, kicking, biting, and name-calling will not prevent gold from meeting its fate. You have to realize there should be a retest of the 1980 high just under the $1,000 mark. There is a risk of testing the Yearly Bearish Reversal at $680. That would probably finish-off the gold promoters for quite a while. I think even a break of $1,000 will make them look rather stupid. But that is what you need at the final low. You have to have the 99% throw in the towel.

In the quote above he uses "should", and points out the high risk of $680, but appears to be very confident that it will break $1,000 which should make goldbugs looks stupid.

Jul 20, 2015 Gold @ $1096.95
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-the-panic-cycle-is-here/

Gold opened the week in Asia with a bang – down nearly $44 at the low of $1083. This is right on target for our Panic Cycle this week. Gold is sharply declining, it will break the $1,000 level, and then everyone will start to look for $600–$700 area.
[...] This is by no means BULLISH – it will have no impact upon price.

Notice he sounds very confident here. No what-ifs. It will break he says, no uncertainty there.
"it will break the $1,000 level" he says - I guess you could argue that no specific date was given for that target, but read the following blog posted few days later, it reveals the target timespan:

Jul 23, 2015 Gold @ $1090.80
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-it-aint-over-until-the-fat-lady-sings/

Yes, the Benchmarks are the targets for it is never just PRICE; it must also be TIME. These two objectives must be reached, and they are in that report. SO DO WE HAVE THE LOW YET? NO. To create the low, the MAJORITY must turn bearish. Their target forecasts will be in the $600–$700 level. The key Weekly Bearish Reversals are 1084 and 1075, followed by 1042 and 1026. We have four Weekly Bearish Reversals providing support before the break at $1,000.

You can also look at the chart and see when this blog was posted.
Armstrong reiterates that we do not have the low yet, at $1090.80! Note "the low" was elected some months later at ~$1050, so technically I guess he was correct. However, look how confident he is that it's going below $1,000 anyway.
Was blog really implying that we still have measly 3% drop ahead? Or he was projecting much lower price?

Jul 26, 2015 - Gold @ ~$1094.51
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/qa/feds-internal-forecast-into-2020-leak/

You say gold will fall below $1,000 and within days Goldman Sachs amazingly says the same thing.

Let's see what the Goldman Sachs said, and what was that "the same thing" which Armstrong said:

July 22, 2015 https://www.kitco.com/news/2015-07-22/Goldman-Sachs-Calls-For-1-000-Gold.html

“There is a probability that the market trades below $1,000 this year given our broader commodity view,” he added.

So they both claimed that gold will go below $1,000 by the end of 2015.

Dec 18, 2015 Price $1066.00 - (~10 years low)
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-into-the-abyss/

Gold Into the Abyss?
We will issue this report in two parts. Part I will be as soon as we have the year-end closing. This will be the guide into the low and will provide the markers to explain how low the low is. Do we crack $1,000 or go all the way to the $600 marker? Part II will be from the low to the high in the years ahead.

Let's analyze the quote:

[Part I] will be the guide into the low.

Here he was not saying that the bottom was reached, tho in the hindsight we can now see that it was reached (contrary to his expectations). Rather, he was expecting lower price and said he would publish the details for the oncoming low some time in the future, more specifically some time in the year 2016.

Do we crack $1,000 or go all the way to the $600 marker?

If gold is at $1050, to crack (i.e. break) $1000, means to go lower than $1000, at least $999.99.
So both "crack $1000", and "go to $600" were bearish options. There was no third option in that quote.
He did say gold would go higher, but only after his next low (which is some target lower than $1,000) gets elected.

Feb 4, 2016 - Price $1160.00
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/the-decline-level-of-confidence-in-govt-gold/

Gold should make a new low this year. However, since we DID NOT get the sell signal in gold at year-end, this is the bounce, so do not expect it to be a breakout just yet.

Feb 12, 2016 - Price $1237.10
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-here-we-go-again/

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong. Are you calling this rally in gold a false move? What does it take to get you bullish? Will you ever be bullish?
ANSWER: When all markets line up and display that there is a trend in motion, which is then definitive, I will clearly state so.

May 24, 2016 Price $1227.50
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-the-dollar/

QUESTION: Marty, it looks like the goldbugs will be wrong once again and you will be right after all. I can’t wait for your technical conference. My basic technical analysis looks like we are going to break $1,000. Your target for a high in May seems spot on also in the euro. I cannot see how gold can rally if the dollar is the only game in town as you say. Any tips?
ANSWER: I do not have the time to read what they are saying this time. It is typically always the same — only up.
Nothing has changed as far as support under $1,000. A strong dollar should be bearish for gold initially.

Dec 9, 2016
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-headed-lower-under-1000-into-the-abyss/

Gold Headed Lower Under $1,000 into the Abyss
This is the problem I have been warning about with gold. It is losing it safe haven status for it is getting to the point you cannot travel with it, keep it in a safe deposit box, or show gold with jewelry. In Italy, if it looks like you have excessive jewelry, they pull you over and weigh it at the border.
Everything is still on target for the move under $1,000 into next year.

So there we go.
Personally, I was not reading these blogs at the time. If I were reading them at the time, for sure I would get the impression that I should get the f. out of gold.
But hey, maybe that's just me? Let's see what was the impression that his readers had at the times of posting.

Comments

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg51753654#msg51753654
unwashed wrote:

I did attend the 2015 WEC and they setup a forum for all attendees which I participated in. After the wec in Dec 2015 MA called for gold to go down below the 1k mark but my TA was saying otherwise and express so on the forum. I believed it bottomed. I wasn't alone, there was an Asian female who also was stating the same observation. We both tried to convince everyone of what we were seeing cause, OMG, EVERYONE WAS GOING SHORT ON HIS FORECAST. Well, I took a long position and so did the Asian female. The after math wasn't a pretty site. Pull up chart for dec/jan 2015 gold chart and see for yourself. Gold rallied from 1062 to 1375.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg51754152#msg51754152
MTL4 wrote (in reply to the comment above):

Spot on! I was at the 2015 WEC and was also on that WEC forum too and I remember that situation all too well. We went through those arrays exhaustively to try and make any sense of how to trade them and finally most came to the same conclusion, they don't work (at least not the system we had been given access to).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg48051764#msg48051764
MA_TALK wrote:

Quote from: realr0ach

Biggest failed calls of the year:

  1. When gold was $1050 and Martin Armstrong said it was going to "drop below $800 into the abyss", meaning he told everyone to sell the exact bottom in gold to the dollar.

Yes, I kind of remember that call from Armstrong. He kept saying that "the fat lady has not sung yet"....
And because of his call, I sold almost all of my mining stocks into his call, and lost over $50K from that trade, before I realized that Armstrong is probably the best con-artist out there.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg16937377#msg16937377
November 20, 2016 Thenoticer wrote:

In 2013 - regarding the above DOW call: "Gold will be a beneficiary too, but in 2015." but later stated ''$650-910 price of Gold coming soon.'' - so this is an extreme flip-flop and neither came close to fruition.
September 14, 2014 - "Is Martin Armstrong Right on Sub-$1000 Gold?" - This seems to be a call that he is sticking with (see below), and I don't disagree, but the timing has not proven him correct to date.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg13564093#msg13564093
January 15, 2016 TPTB_need_war wrote:

I've never seen that prediction. It was always that gold would decline after 2011 to reach a low in Q12016 of < $850. I am talking about a prediction in a copy of his paid report.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1329136.msg13563905#msg13563905
January 15, 2016 TPTB_need_war wrote:

Amazing the [bitcoin] crash is coming right on time as gold has also warned it is ready to crash below $1000 (headed to below $850 by March).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg13597122#msg13597122
January 18, 2016 TPTB_need_war wrote:

But then someone shared with me a copy of Armstrong's gold report and I became aware that the predicted low was roughly March 2016. So then I began to expect the final capitulation low would come Q1 2016. I stated this publicly.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg15483837#msg15483837
July 06, 2016 libertad wrote:

Is MA still calling for gold to drop below $900? That call doesn't seem likely at this time.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg16980461#msg16980461
November 24, 2016 iamnotback wrote:

Here comes [gold] $850: https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/markets-by-sector/precious-metals/gold/gold-the-global-market-watch/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg51131195#msg51131195
May 20, 2019 psp777 wrote:

I admit I lost money on a gold trade when he stated gold would go under $1000 at the end of 2016. I was shorting gold only to have it reverse on me very quickly. Weeks later, MA stated, see our levels held! And, I was like...wait a minute...this was a 180 degree turn from what was being stated on his blog.


So there we have it.
Even people who followed Armstrong for more than 5+ years, subscribed to private blog, people who bought yearly reports, heck, even people who attended WEC themselves shorted gold because obvisouly Martin Armstrong was a gold bear publicly (and privately) at the time.

I guess you could go back in time and dig out some of his "bullish" blogs (if they exist), but what for? Future predictions nullify his previous predictions. If he changed stance, why would we go A-ha! but look at 1998 he said this or that.
Also, there is simply no way to find every single one of his calls in the first place, and then try to make something out of it.
Even if today you could interpret those Martin Armstrong's calls as being bullish, it doesn't matter because you are only able to do it now, in hindsight, which means that at the time of such calls it was completely useless to you, because you did not know what they meant at the time you needed it.

Here is an analogy:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg51170915#msg51170915
MA_talk wrote:

What is the point of telling everyone that you have "invented the airplane", and then tell them that this airplane requires 10+ years of training to master, and that there is no actual training provided along with the airplane?
Anyone can claim that he made a super-AI computer that predicts the future, and the problem of all the subscribers' failed trades is simply because all of them failed to understand this super-sophisticated 72 models. The problem of failure is always on others, not being able to understand and decode the "array" and "reversals", and never on the models.

Food for thought:
If Martin Armstrong by some means actually made correct calls with regards to gold, and is aware that his readers completely "misinterpret" his blogs, why does he keep posting them?


Additional reading material:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1082909.msg53188268#msg53188268
AnonymousCoder wrote:

If you haven't seen my analysis, it is at Quarterly Superposition Event in Gold 2015