We should know soon whether the animal spirits that pushed gold and silver sharply higher yesterday can withstand the endorsement of James Cramer. Although we seldom watch his show – even with the TV off, you can practically hear him shouting within a ten-mile radius of CNBC’s Fort Lee studio — someone mentioned in the Rick’s Picks chat room yesterday that he’s hot to acquire gold and precious-metal shares. Never too late, we suppose, but we somehow doubt he was so keen on the stuff ten years ago, when an ounce of bullion was selling for about a fifth its current price. Is it too late to jump on the bullish bandwagon even though Cramer’s doing it? Not at all. In fact, so certain are we that an ounce of gold will trade above $1400 by year’s end that we promise to don a grass skirt and dance the hula in Times Square in the middle of winter if we’re wrong. (Oh, right, we’re already doing that because Goldman shares failed to fall to a $29 target we were equally certain about. What could we have been thinking? So foolish to have bet against a company that, through interlocking directorates, owns a majority stake in the U.S. Government.)
You don’t need to be a technical analyst these days to discern that precious-metal quotes want to go higher. Silver in particular has gone marauding despite the best efforts of the bad guys to hold it down. We had alerted subscribers Monday night to the possibility of a price surge that would lift gold as well when we wrote as follows: “Silver has been showing more energy than Gold lately, a fact that has been reflected in [our] enthusiastic Silver touts over the last couple of weeks. Late Monday night, the futures were pushing past the 20.185 Hidden Pivot midpoint of the pattern shown in the chart. This implies they are bound for at least 20.445, its ‘D’ sibling, although there are bigger patterns with commensurately higher targets that were identified here earlier.” In plain English, Silver was chomping through the last obstacle DaBoyz could set in front of it. When it finally popped, the December contract gained 25 cents in the wee hours – peaking at exactly 20.445; then it got second wind when Chicago markets opened, hitting an eventual high of 20.550.
By that time, gold, which had been somewhat lethargic in the last week or so, didn’t need any help. The Comex contract shot up nearly $30 intraday, bettering our 1264.40 target by $12. We’d said it would be clear sailing to at least 1291 if the December futures got past 1264, and we’re holding to that forecast.
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Agreed. Cramer’s excitement in gold is only the first step for the barbarous relic becoming in vogue and sexy to the average investor. I guess we could mark this as phase 2 of the bull market where it moves to secular. The next phase is the mania but we are not even close to being there yet. Phase 3, the final mania, will be marked when Cramer says there is no way anyone can lose money if they buy gold!