Gold’s tedious shenanigans should not cause us to take our eyes off the little sonofabitch for too long, since we might miss something interesting. Like now, for instance. The December contact has mildly caught fire and is making another run at 1301.20, a very important midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance that has stopped promising rallies three times since April, including one earlier this week. This is a very crucial obstacle, since once decisively above it the December contract would be no worse than an even-odds bet to reach 1462.70. How decisively?  Two consecutive weekly closes above the pivot would do the trick, or alternatively an intraday thrust exceeding 1325.00 or so. The chart (see inset) shows the whole picture, including the 1301.20 midpoint pivot that I have revised slightly upward from an earlier 1300.70. _______ UPDATE (Aug 26):  I won’t dignify Friday’s freakish spasm by ‘analyzing’ it, but suffice it to say, it changed nothing in the technical picture given above. _______ UPDATE (Aug 28, 7:26 p.m.): December Gold is streaking higher tonight, goosed by news that Kim Jong Un-sane had lobbed a missile over Japan. The so-far top at 1330.00 has surpassed the benchmark given above by $5, raising the odds that this rally is for real. At the very least, it has put into play the 1382.00 ‘secondary’ pivot of the pattern as a minimum upside target for the near term.