The April contract has taken a tortuous path higher since New Year’s Eve, when it tripped a buy signal tied to the 1731.30 target shown. The target has never been in serious doubt, even when a hellish $135 swoon occurred a couple of weeks ago. In fact, that tripped a ‘mechanical’ buy signal at p=1594.20 that may have been reassuring to those who’ve been in gold for the long haul.  Although 1731.30 is not quite a done deal because of the difficulty buyers had getting past p, it’s probably an 85% shot to be achieved, probably within the next 6-12 days. We’ll need to take stock if and when this happens, since there’s likely to be a substantial correction from that number. ______ UPDATE (Mar 11, 9:44 p.m. EDT): It would be great if we could say gold has held its own, but shouldn’t it be rallying as stocks collapse? Clearly, bullion is not on the list of investable assets that portfolio managers regard as safe havens. Which leaves mostly nervous Nellies to tend precious metals markets, and to dive for cover each time gold seems to be getting insufficient lift from pandemic fears. The bull market is still very much intact on the daily and intraday charts nonetheless, as is the 1731.30 target. My gut feeling is that it eventually will be reached, but that it could take longer than the 6-12 days I’d allotted. As a practical matter, a long position would have been exited at around 1695 using a ‘dynamic’ trailing stop such as I’ve detailed here before. Regardless, we should prepare for a long slog — and perhaps be careful what we wish for, since a heightened crisis capable of lighting a fire under gold evidently would need to be more serious than the crisis we’ve got already. Which is to say, more serious than most of us might care to imagine.