The bullish pattern shown, which promised just a few short weeks ago to deliver a run-up to 1873.90, is close to succumbing. Since gold loves to push bulls to the point of despair before turning around, we shouldn’t give up on it quite yet, even if the futures stop out longs with a feint below C=1666.20.  If the feint turns into a rout, we’ll regroup with fresh analysis. The intermediate- and long-term outlook would remain bullish nonetheless, but we should get used to thinking of bullion’s longer-term uptrend as a bullish market, rather than a bull market.  The latter is what we witnessed in the Dow Industrials, Nasdaq and the S&Ps, which rallied almost relentlessly for 11 years no matter what the news. Gold, in contrast, has been mostly marking time,  demonstrating with an oft-tortuous uptrend that the bad guys can no longer punish it for more than a few days. ______ UPDATE (May 7, 9:05 p.m. EDT): Gold’s best rally in more than two weeks has given it a running start at the 1770.10 midpoint Hidden Pivot where bulls failed the last time. They’ll need to close the futures above it for two consecutive days to make a push to 1873.90. an odds-on bet. That would also activate the pattern itself for ‘mechanically’ trading the various levels. _______ UPDATE (May 12, 6:56 p.m.): Gold continues to mark time with gratuitous $60 swings. They are tradeable, of course, and entertaining to watch if you hold no position, but no fun otherwise. The bullish benchmarks flagged above will remain theoretically viable as long as 1666.20 is not exceeded to the downside.