Monday’s surge did everything we’d asked of April Gold and more, raising the odds that this rally is more than the usual Whoopee Cushion effusion that has repeatedly teased bulls to the limits of their patience for the last four years. At the intraday high, the futures had demolished a daunting resistance at 1191.90, where April Gold peaked precipitously in mid-October. That leaves only a lesser peak at 1232.30 (see inset) and January 2015’s ‘Matterhorn’ at  1308.00 as impediments to the resumption of the long-term bull market. If the rally, which is still uncorrected on the weekly chart, continues without a significant pause, surpassing both of those peaks without taking a breather, I’d infer that the bear market is over.  In the meantime, because the uptrend is becoming overextended, I’ll forego a night-in-advance trading strategy, since getting aboard this late in the rally is going to be tricky no matter how we attempt it. I do not mean to suggest, however, that it could not get much more overbought, and go significantly higher, before buyers take a rest._______UPDATE (5:30 p.m.): So far, so good. We keep expecting gold to go kamikaze, but the rally continues to hold up surprisingly well. Tuesday’s so-far shallow correction portends an imminent thrust to as high as 1222.80 over the near term. That’s assuming the so-far retracement low at 1185.90 holds and that buyers have the wattage to push past midpoint resistance at 1204.40. A pullback to that number after it has been exceeded for a few bars by about $3.50 would set up a ‘mechanical’ buying opportunity, stop 1198.20.