ARCHIVED COMMENTARY
Outlook for Gold:
Look at a Chart!
For edition of November 21, 2006
With rumors swirling on Monday concerning supposed Saudi bullion purchases, Rick’s Picks subscribers tuned to the chat room wanted to know only, “Where’s gold going next?” The item that had stoked the rumor mill, extracted by a chat-room regular from one of the gold sites, was as follows: “The markets have been moving upwards to some extent on the basis that Saudis and other wealthy Middle Eastern investors and sheiks have been moving money out of their own countries and their stock markets into US and European markets for safety. It is also alleged that they are accumulating vast amounts of physical gold for storage in London, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe.”
No kidding! I should probably have someone on my staff check out this “news” right away! And while I’m at it, I’ll see what I can dig up concerning the tonnes of bullion supposedly missing from Ft. Knox. And reports that Judge Crater and Amelia Earhart were spotted together on the Jersey Turnpike.
All Het Up
Now, why anyone would get all het up about the immediate outlook for gold is beyond me. Look at the chart below, and you can see for yourself that there’s not a whole lot going on:
(Click on chart to enlarge)
Here’s what I wrote in the chat room, an attempt to douse gold fever with dispassionate analysis:
I honestly don't understand how their could be a question right now about whether Gold is "bullish" or "bearish." If you want an answer -- a tradable one, even -- then simply look at Gold’s charts. As we can see above, the daily chart is more or less neutral, suggesting that perhaps selling option straddles on bullion may be the way to go. Would you prefer to get long? Fine. Just go to the 5-minute chart (see below) where there's a downtrend in progress to a Hidden Pivot target.
A Way to Get Short
Or perhaps you’d rather get short? Then try shorting the one-minute bars, which are projecting a 623.50 high within perhaps the next few minutes. And do so with the understanding that the 623.50 could conceivably be the highest high we’ll see in Gold for the next ten years. But if 623.50 should be exceeded by just 2-3 ticks, then we will "know" that higher prices likely lie in store.
Traders and investors are often all too eager to see signs that Something Big is about to happen, but most of the time not much does. We are living in horrifically interesting times, no question, but that doesn’t necessarily mean securities markets will reflect the reality of it. In fact, the markets, as they continue their climb to a 100th-story ledge, are quite obviously deaf, dumb and blind to the real world. That’s why, as traders, we should sometimes tune out the news and simply read the charts.
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Seminar in Oz
There are still seats left for the Hidden Pivot seminar scheduled in Sydney, Australia, on December 2-3. You can request a registration form and further details by clicking here.
