Having spent more than a month in limbo, gold now lies just inches from triggering a potentially explosive rally. Before yesterday’s sharp surge, disappointment in the form of leaden price action had dogged bulls since early March, when Comex futures failed by a hair to surpass an important prior peak after trending higher for five days. A Formula 1 racer might as well have blown a head gasket a hundred yards from the checkered flag.

According to our proprietary Hidden Pivot forecasting method, a healthy rally re-energizes itself by surpassing two prior peaks with each new thrust.  So far in 2010, however, gold has conspicuously failed to do this on its daily charts. Now, however, the June Comex contract has a chance to blow past no fewer than four prior peaks without taking a breather, and to develop enough thrust in the process to all but clinch a test of last December’s all-time high at 1230.00.

To be sure, we have detected no underlying weakness in bullion, even if it has been reluctant to pop to the next level. If it were otherwise, pullbacks would have reached their Hidden Pivot targets.  Instead, selling has dried up well short of the targets, and the subsequent rebounds have been relatively strong. The recurrence of this pattern in recent months has bullish implications, and they are corroborated by anecdotal evidence suggesting that physical gold has been difficult to buy in quantity whenever prices have dipped below $1100.

What to Look For

Now to specifics. The chart above shows that June Gold has risen without correcting since March 30, when it bottomed at 1102.40. With yesterday’s push to 1154.20, the rally has surpassed two peaks, but it need rise only a further 17.70 to exceed two more. That would create a powerful impulse leg indeed, leaving the June contract in excellent shape to sprint to at least 1245.60 before even a short breather would be needed.

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