Agoracom Blog

Eric Coffin – Keynote Presentation: Interest Rates and Currencies Driving Metals Markets

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:00 AM on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

THIS PRESENTATION WILL GO LIVE ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3RD @ 1:00 PM EST.

Please find enclosed our lunch hour keynote presentation for The AGORACOM Online Gold & Commodities Conference. Eric Coffin, Co-Producer of The Hard Rock Analyst Publications, delivers a fantastic presentation titled “Interest Rates and Currencies Driving Metals Markets”.  During his presentation, Eric efficiently covers the reasons behind our global economic issues but – more importantly – spends most of his time answering the biggest question on all our minds … “so now what?”.

His methodical, detailed yet layman appealing presentation illustrates exactly why Coffin and his brother were awarded the Cambridge House Award for Market Analysis in 2007.

Please click on the image below to launch the presentation in a new browser window. The presentation will not launch prior to 1:00 PM EST. Upon completion of the interview, close the window and return here to post your questions and comments. To do so, please click on the “Comments” button at the bottom of this post.

CONFERENCE LINKS: Home PagePresenting CompaniesKeynote SpeakersConference Schedule

Eric Coffin - Opening Slide

BACKUP LINK IN CASE OF BANDWIDTH ISSUES (CLICK HERE)

PROFILE

Responsible for the “financial analysis” side of HRA, Eric has a degree in Corporate and Investment Finance. He has extensive experience in merger and acquisitions and small company financing and promotion. For many years he tracked the financial performance and funding of all exchange listed Canadian mining companies and has helped with the formation of several successful exploration ventures.

Eric Coffin is one of the most respected resource market commentators in the industry. Eric and his brother David produce the Hard Rock Analyst publications, newsletters that focus on metals explorers, developers and producers as well as metals and equity markets in general.

Eric reviews data from hundreds of companies seeking strong management and finance teams in undiscovered companies for HRA’s readers. In 2007, they were awarded the Cambridge House Award for Market Analysis.

Eric has been interviewed on CBC Television’s Business News, as well as, national and local radio throughout North America for his opinions on resource trends. He is a frequent contributor to several third party publications and a number of resource, gold, metals and market related Internet sites.

He regularly speaks at a number of North American gold and resource conferences. He was one of the first analysts to point out the disastrous effects of gold hedging and gold loan capital financing (1997) and to predict the start of the current secular bull market in commodities based on the movement of the US Dollar (2001) and the acceleration of growth in Asia and India.

Regards,
George

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8 Responses to “Eric Coffin – Keynote Presentation: Interest Rates and Currencies Driving Metals Markets”

  1. cwallace says:

    Wow- outstanding.
    Thank you for coming back and answering so thoughtfully. You’ve summed up a complex idea very well.
    all the best

  2. Eric Coffin says:

    Thanks for the compliment.

    Bernanke effectively declared an end, or at least the beginning of the end, of QE in October. That wasn’t a big shock becuase the program should be governed by the TARP limits of 700 billion in bond purchases which the Fed was rapidly closing in on. It has some other ways to play in the market and we might see some of that going forward.

    After the surprisingly good jobs number yesterday, I think it will be even more important to keep an eye on bond yields. While there are some skeptics about that job report (which was much stronger than the private ADP report out a day earlier) that sort of good news surprise may have the bond vigilantes stirring even earlier than I thought.

    Bernanke is under pressure to start removing stimulus but I am more than a bit skeptical about Washington’s spending habits, regardless of the party in office. Whenever I give a talk at a conference in the US I usually ask the audience what they think of the idea of massive spending cuts across the board or, say, a VAT style tax in the 7-10% range. You can probably guess the reaction. Short of measures like that I very much doubt we will see federal deficits below the $500 billion mark in the foreseable future. In that sense the printing presses will keep running overtime.

    While governments like China in particular have used the treasury market to “recycle” dollars we can’t assume that will go on forever. Its no secret Beijing is looking for alternative. I can tell you that they are all over Africa right now fronting state companies and privatized companies in the mining and oil and gas sectors. The checkbooks are out and they are big. They are more than happy to spend some of that $2 trillion that way rather then buying more US debt.

    With so much fear in the market the Fed and Treasury has had it relatively easy – I’ve honestly been amazed at the ease with which they have floated so many new treasury issues. If we see more “good news” like yesterday’s job report that could start to shift. I agree with your concerns because its one that that we have been worried about all year. If the US suddenly starts putting up decent economic stats the ten year yield could get on the other side of 5% quickly. There is going to be a battle between “the new optimists” (those on the sidelines I talked about)and those that bought the market due to low yields everywhere else. We saw a bit of that yesterday. Great volume but a small upward move on what has to be considered a very positive employment report. We could see the rally extended but I think things could get pretty choppy now going forward and a correction becomes more likely every time bond yields ratchet up again like they did yesterday.

    Hope that helps,

    Eric Coffin

  3. cwallace says:

    That was a great interview, I really enjoyed that.
    A quick question for Eric:
    Do you feel the Federal Reserve will be able to step away from Quantitative Easing in a manner that does not upset the bond market( or stock market)? The US congress has not indicated they are interested in spending less, and I can’t imagine foreign central banks ramping up US treasury purchases…
    Sorry, I know it’s not a simple topic, but, in short, will the end of QE, should it happen, “rock” the markets. thank you for your presentation and any comment you can afford.
    Regards
    glen

  4. AGORACOM says:

    Via E-Mail from a gracious competitor:

    “Very cool George. I always said we should do this. Good for you guys! Listening to Eric now…”

    People are watching from everywhere.

    Regards,
    George

  5. AGORACOM says:

    Via A Major Investor On Twitter (http://twitter.com/aiki14/status/6311361102)

    @AGORACOM Really great stuff so far, terrific value for me, Peter and Eric both brought their A game. http://bit.ly/5ogYFE $$

  6. Eric Coffin says:

    Thanks George.

    I will be checking in here periodically so feel free to ask questions if you have them.

  7. AGORACOM says:

    I hope everyone is enjoying this presentation. I look forward to comments and questions today and over the weekend as investors continue to tune in.

    Regards,
    George