Listed Mining Companies
Nobody would have thought only 12 months ago that South African gold shares would have stood a chance of overtaking platinum shares. But that’s what Royal Bank of Canada Europe analysts Leon Esterhuizen, Arnold van Graan and Yuen Low are now predicting. They say that South African gold shares are poised to outdo platinum shares in the first half of 2009, or, in finance speak, that there is more downside risk to platinum earnings than to gold earnings. They say that the potential gold-earnings increase will be driven by both price and production, which make for a better investment case for gold, and, by contrast, they expect South African platinum stocks to reflect the impact of the significant decline in the platinum price basket well into 2009. They expect most, if not all, of the major platinum producers to post losses in 2009, bringing to an end the multiyear platinum bull run.
