Is Gold Safe to Buy? Here are 13 Gold Stocks Saying “No”

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Is gold headed for a comeback? At first glance, it sure looks like it. Gold futures just cracked $1,300 an ounce for the first time in three months. This is officially the longest rally in gold prices since 2011.

But if you look more closely at what gold was up to before the latest rebound, you’ll see that the metal hasn’t quite regained its luster. While 2014 may be a better year for gold, it’s simply too risky to put new money in the yellow metal. Or, in companies that mine gold, for that matter.

That’s because there are several other headwinds kicking up.

First, there’s the Federal Reserve’s newly revealed tapering plan. Essentially, the more confidence there is in central banks, the worse it is for gold and other precious metals. So because the Fed implied that it may not conduct quantitative easing “to infinity,” confidence in the Fed improved over the fall, hurting gold in subsequent trading days.

The other factor weighing down the gold market is that a lot of gold has just become available on the world markets. As part of the new nuclear agreement struck with Iran last month, sanctions were removed on $8 billion in Iran’s frozen assets. This means that the country will rely less on gold, which it had previously traded for crude oil under the economic sanctions.

Right now, what the gold market needs is a lot more instability among central banks as well as tension in the Middle East—uncertainty makes gold more appealing to nervous investors. Recently we’ve seen some jitters surrounding rising rates in India and a slowdown in China’s manufacturing, so that has rekindled interest in gold for some.

Even so, I don’t think this alone will sustain gold prices going forward. So I don’t recommend you go loading up on gold stocks right now. In fact, I ran 13 of the largest gold companies through Portfolio Grader this morning, and I was shocked to see how poorly all of these stocks performed in my screens.

Just take a look:

13 Gold Stocks to Sell Now

Ticker	Company	Quantitative Grade	Fundamental Grade	My Rating
ABX	Barrick Gold	F	D	Strong Sell
AEM	Agnico-Eagle Mines	D	D	Sell
AU	AngloGold Ashanti	F	D	Strong Sell
AUY	Yamana Gold	F	D	Strong Sell
BVN	Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA	F	D	Strong Sell
EGO	Eldorado Gold	F	D	Sell
GFI	Gold Fields	F	D	Strong Sell
GG	Goldcorp	D	C	Sell
GOLD	Randgold Resources	D	C	Sell
KGC	Kinross Gold	F	D	Strong Sell
NEM	Newmont Mining	F	D	Strong Sell
NGD	New Gold	F	D	Strong Sell
RGLD	Royal Gold	C	D	Sell

My publisher on the East Coast tells me that they got quite a lot of snow today, so if you’re from around those parts I hope you’re staying warm and dry. .