Fred Hickey: Buy gold miners

Fred Hickey has been "a long and faithful fan" of gold, says Alan Abelson in Barron's. Hickey, who writes the High Tech Strategist newsletter, rose to prominence in the 1990s, when he called the top of the tech bubble before most other analysts.

Hickey has liked the yellow metal for the last decade, sensing trouble when the American authorities decided to replace the tech bubble with a housing bubble. As he's "not hesitant to put his money where his mouth is", it's no surprise to find that his biggest positions are in "gold and its kin".

Gold bounced off a four-month low of $1,527 an ounce last week as bad news on Europe continued to pile up. Meanwhile, weak US data made further money printing more likely, raising the spectre of an eventual surge in inflation.

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Hickey points out that the gold bull of the past 12 years has seen plenty of corrections and rebounds. Having trimmed his exposure after gold's last strong run-up, he is now going long again because he thinks the froth has been blown off: short-term speculative money has left the market.

Hickey is especially keen on gold mines, which "are cheaper today versus the price of gold than at any time in this 12-year bull market. No one wants to own them. That's exactly when I like to buy them." Among his top gold stock holdings are NYSE-listed GoldCorp (GG), Yamana Gold (AUY) and Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM).