The Duke Returns, General Moly Leads Grubstake

Morning Miners!

It is 5:42 AM. Help me wash some cups and we'll be good to go. The film crew came in the break room early this morning and they're ready to shoot. We're in for a Monday "twofer" because it is the end of August. We always bring the Duke back the last day of the month to check consumer savings and credit rates, but now he's here for a longer stretch to film his new movie on global recovery (Is the Cavalry in the Long Dusty Valley?).

Last week we left left John Wayne and the Cavalry in Indian country and things were getting a bit too quiet for comfort. It doesn't seem like it's going to get much better today; copper missed $3 by a penny early this morning and is headed south with a lot of other commodities. What's up? That doggone Chinese stock market took another 7% dipsy-doodle down and it's spooking the horses. As we've chatted before, the Shanghai Index shouldn't be taken too seriously compared to broadly traded stock markets but it hit a May low today and its little tail is sure wagging a big dog.

Let's checkout some good news before the arrows start flying. At the market close Friday, the readers (yup, that's you) made $118,377.91 in the Eureka Miner's Million Dollar Grubstake. That's a 11.8% return on your money since we started May 10th buckaroos! General Moly is leading the pack, here's the top four out of twelve stocks:

General Moly (GMO) up 52.7%
ArcelorMittal (MT) up 28.0%
Freeport-McMoran (FCX) up 26.4%
Caterpillar (CAT) up 17.8%

Here's the bottom four (worst first):

Newmont Mining (NEM) down 5.4%
EOG Resources (EOG) down 4.7%
ConocoPhillips (COP) down 2.6%
Barrick Gold (ABX) up 4.1%

It's important to note that the top four are driven by strong steel and copper performance and a positive international outlook for Caterpillar. Oil and gold have been range bound for sometime now and it has hurt our favorite gold miners and the two energy companies in the Grubstake.

Look who just came in the break room, it's the Duke! Yes folks, it's time to walk the walk in the savings and credit markets. The Report started this check in the blog, Where's The Duke When We Need Him?. The Report plans to continue this monthly review so you can track where we're going as time marches on. Here are today's national averages compared to last month's numbers (WSJ Market Data, 8/31/09):

10-yr Treasury Note 3.449% vs 3.56%, down
Money Market 1.17% vs 1.21%, down (52-wk low, 1.17%)
5-year Bank CD 2.66% vs 2.65%, up (52-wk low, 2.59%)
30-yr mortgage, fixed 5.32% vs 5.55%, down (52-wk low, 5.06%)
15-yr mortgage, fixed 4.80% vs 4.86%, down (52-wk low, 4.69%)
New-car loan, 48-month 7.43% vs 7.28%, down (52-wk low, 6.48%)
Home-equity LOC, $30K 5.82% vs 5.78%, up (52-wk low, 5.03%)


It is a little discouraging that money market rates are at their 52-week low but CD rates may have bottomed out last month and are slowly inching up. The good news for home buyers are lower fixed mortgage rates than last month. The 10-yr Treasury hovering around 3.5% tells us that Uncle Ben is doing a pretty good job in keeping interest rates low and the credit markets stable. Ben has savers on the Slim-Fast plan.

Enough talk, let's walk the walk:

All lights are green on the Eureka Outlook Dashboard (upper right, what is this?)

Oil is down $2.13 in early trading to $70.61 (October contract); Gold is down $9.6 to $949.2 (December contract, most active); Silver is down $0.135 to $14.680 (December contract); Copper is down $0.0825 to $2.8680 (December contract); Molybdenum holds at $17.15.

The DOW is down 90.54 points to 9453.66; the S&P 500, down 12.12 points to 1016.81. The miners are down:

Barrick (ABX) $34.04 up 1.78%
Newmont (NEM) $40.33 up 2.63%
General Moly (Eureka Moly, LLC) (GMO) $2.72 down 3.21%
Freeport McMoran (FCX) $63.67 down 2.76% (a bellwether mining stock spanning gold, copper & molybdenum)

Steel stocks are down, (a "tell" for General Moly):

Nucor (NUE) $44.95 down 1.98% - domestic steel manufacturing
ArcelorMittal (MT) $35.89 down 2.31% - global steel producer
POSCO (PKX) $92.25 down 2.45% - South Korean integrated steel producer

The Eureka Miner's Grubstake Portfolio is down 2.00% to $1,095,962.54 (what is this?).

Cheers,

Colonel Possum