Originally published October 9th, 2011.
It now looks like we were a little too bullish in the last update, for the way gold has acted over the past week suggests that another sharp drop is imminent before the dust finally settles on this reactive phase, that it likely to take it to or some way below its recent panic lows.
On gold's 4-month chart it is now apparent that a bear Pennant has been forming since the panic bottom, with the weak upside volume portending an imminent breakdown and steep drop. A reader pointed out to me during last week that gold's panic lows occurred in thin trading on the Hong Kong market, and for this reason we do not have to factor in the tail of the hammer candlestick when deciding where to draw the boundaries of the Pennant. The measuring implications of this Pennant call for a drop at least to the vicinity of the intraday lows of the Reversal Hammer and possibly somewhat lower towards the $1520 area - at this point the decline should have completely run its course and we will be looking to buy aggressively. If we look carefully we can see that a small "bearish engulfing pattern" has formed in gold over the past 2 trading days, implying that breakdown from the Pennant and the expected steep drop that will follow is imminent. A reason why this next drop should end the decline is that gold is already deeply oversold as shown by its MACD indicator, and it will of course be even more so after this impending decline. Those interested in going long gold investments in the near future should "keep their powder dry" but stand ready to wade in big time if gold drops into the bright green "aggressive accumulation zone" shown on our chart.
Other reasons why the imminent sharp drop expected should mark the end of gold's reactive phase are to be seen on its 1-year chart. On this chart we can see that a decline to or below its recent panic lows will take it deep into strong support near to its rising 200-day moving average, the classic point for a major reaction in an ongoing bullmarket to end.
Still another reason for the reaction to terminate with this final drop are gold's now strongly bullish COT chart on which we can see that Commercial short and Large Spec long positions have dropped back to relatively low levels - the lowest for a long, long time.
There is certainly plenty of light at the end of the tunnel for gold over a longer time horizon, and not just that which arises from its own COT charts. The COT charts for the dollar are strongly bearish, with the Commercials going heavily short, and they are also going heavily long the euro. This implies that the current state of extreme crisis in the Eurozone should ease soon and the euro rally sharply, and the dollar fall heavily - which suggests that european leaders may scale back their bickering soon and cooperate sufficiently to ease the crisis with generous helpings of QE, which will of course be bullish for gold and silver. Our euro fx COT chart below shows the big long position in the that the Commercials have built up.
Although the big Commercial short position in the dollar is a harbinger of doom for the current strong dollar rally, it looks on its 3-month chart like it has a bit of life left in it yet. The long-legged doji candlestick that formed on Friday implies that it will turn higher again next week and maybe make new highs.
Bearish price action in both copper and oil on Friday suggests that they too will turn down this coming week.
