Do you know which commodities are over-priced and which are under-priced? Here’s a look at the 2 commodities that act as beacons for hard asset investors – gold and oil – and a current gold/oil ratio that begs the question “Is crude oil getting pricey or is gold too cheap”.
Written by Lorimer Wilson, editor of munKNEE.com
There’s a relationship between gold and oil that’s worth understanding because each, being valued in U.S. dollars, serves as a measure of inflation and, since both commodities have a common denominator, it’s easy to price one against the other.
The chart below shows the number of barrels of $WTIC oil one (1) troy ounce of gold ($GOLD) would buy for the 30 years between June 1989 and May 31st, 2019:
Currently 1 troy ounce of gold (@$1311.10/ozt) will get you 24.51 barrels of West Texas Intermediate Crude oil (@$53.50/bbl). As history illustrates in the 30-year chart above, high or low extremes in the Gold:WTIC Ratio (GOR) are always quickly followed by a mean reversion – either oil plunges or gold soars, or both – to bring the GOR back in line, and that has been a 47-year monthly average of 15.4.
As a rule of thumb:
- when the ratio is below 9, oil is relatively expensive (and gold is relatively inexpensive) and
- when the ratio is above 20, oil is relatively inexpensive (and gold is relatively expensive).
That would suggest – contrary to what the Dow:Gold ratio is saying – that gold is currently expensive with little upside potential. My recent Dow:Gold ratio analysis (see here), however, concludes that, due to a long, deep inflationary recession, the Dow:Gold ratio will eventually arrive at a 1:1 with:
- Gold at $5,000 (& the Dow at 5,000),
- Gold at $10,000 (& the Dow at 10,000 or perhaps even
- Gold as high as $12,500 (& the Dow at 12,500).
Time will tell.
Given the above, the only way I can see the Gold:WTIC reverting to the historical 47-year monthly average of 15.4 is for:
- WTIC oil to go UP to $84/bbl were Gold to remain unchanged in price at $1,300/ozt.
- or WTIC oil to decline drastically – perhaps to as low as $25/bbl – due to a long, deep deflationary recession – but, gold, in turn, would need to drop to $385/ozt to realize a Gold/WTIC ratio of 15.4.
- Conversely, gold would have to go DOWN to $824/ozt were WTIC oil to remain unchanged at $53.50/bbl and incidentally, that is not that outlandish if you adhere to Harry Dent’s contention (read here and here) that gold is heading for $650-$750 initially, and that it will ultimately revert to its bubble origin of between $400 & $450/ozt.
Conclusion
Based on historical gold:WTIC ratios the current ratio suggests that further improvement in the price of crude oil is just around the corner and that long positions in crude oil will become quite profitable in the near future.
(It should be noted here, however, that others have a different take on the situation. According to an article on Seeking Alpha “Crude oil is fundamentally bearish. Supply is surpassing demand and [crude oil] stocks are rising at a time when they should be falling. This is why price is falling in WTI futures and, therefore, why price is falling in USO. As long as this oversupply situation remains, we will see prices in WTI futures likely continue to fall. [Editor’s note: But will they ever eventually decline into the lower $20s?]. For that reason, I suggest investors maintain short positions or exit any remaining longs.”)
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