FSJG Index™ Weekly Review
by Frank Barbera
December 2, 2005

General Comments

It was the best of times and the worst of times for Gold investors over the last few trading days. On the bright side, we saw the price of Gold perform very strongly to the upside over the last 5 days gaining $14.00 on the week or 2.83%. On Thursday, nearby February Gold surged above $500 for the first time since late 1987 with prices remaining comfortably above $500 thru Friday’s close at $507.20.

Yet, for investors in Gold Stocks, this week’s stellar performance in Bullion accrued nothing but a giant lump of coal in the old Christmas stocking. On the week, the XAU moved down 2.43 index points or 2.04% falling from 118.66 to a close of 116.23. At the same time, the HUI tumbled from 255.02 last week to a close this week of 248.07, a loss of 6.95 index points or 2.72%. This performance was hardly an inspiring performance considering that Gold has now advanced from a low of $456 on 11/04/05 to a high this week of $507.20. For the record, that’s puts GOLD UP FOUR WEEKS IN A ROW!, with a total gain of $51 or 11.18% in Bullion. Over the same period of time, the HUI is up 11.21% and the XAU up 9.43%. These are “OK” gains, but for the normally highly-leveraged Gold Stocks, it is hard not to see them as somewhat disappointing. This is especially true when one considers that the gold indices have been buoyed by a rather hefty nearly 40% gain in shares of Placer Dome, which is now a take-over target. Normally, with a gain of 11% in Bullion, mining share indices would be running percentage gains of two to three times the move in Gold itself. In that vein, there is a distinct weakening in the mining sector leadership, which was present in the latter portion of this week.

Financial Sense Junior Gold Index

For the Financial Sense Junior Gold Index (FSJG), the week also yielded nothing but coal in the Christmas stocking for investors. The index slipped from last week's close of 172.52 to a reading on Friday of 170.77 for a loss of 1%. Over the last few weeks, going back to the high seen on September 29^th at 171.69, the FSJG Index is actually down slightly, a performance mirroring the action seen in the XAU and HUI. At week's end, the 50-day average ended at 163.84 with the 200-day average at 155.80.

Among the Sub-Sector Indices, the Junior Producer Index ended at 2.85 or 1.45% at 192.39, down from 195.24. Among the Development Companies, share prices weakened depressing the Development Index from 521.68 to a close of 512.85 or 1.69%. Among the Sub-Indices, only the Exploration Index gained ground turning in a rather muted advance of 1.23% to close at 65.78, up from last week's reading of 64.98.

Financial Sense Junior Gold Index™
Producer Companies

Frank

*Please note that the individual companies in this index are proprietary and will not be disclosed due to compliance and regulatory issues resulting from the relationship of FinancialSense.com, Puplava Financial Services, Inc., Registered Investment Advisor and Puplava Securities, Inc. Member Firm FINRA/SIPC.