December Gold’s promising mid-week rally died an inch shy of a mid-July’s peak at 1839, disappointing bullion fans for the umpteenth time.  The rally was impulsive nonetheless on the hourly chart, and that is why we should view the pullback, sharp as it’s been, as merely corrective.  We’ll continue to use the 1858.60 target of a middling ‘reverse’ pattern as a minimum upside objective, but for trading purposes I’ll suggest focusing on the bullish pattern begun from Wednesday’s 1795.60 low. Stay tuned to the chat room for tradeable details as they develop in real time. _______ UPDATE (Aug 4, 8:30 a.m. ET):  Gold has taken a stab higher today, slightly exceeding the midpoint Hidden Pivot resistance of a pattern projecting to as high as 1850.10 over the near term. We’ll use that Hidden Pivot as a new minimum upside projection, since you can never go far wrong in gold by lowering your sights. Skeptical though we should be, a pullback to the green line (1818.70) would trigger a ‘mechanical’ buy sufficient appealing to warrant a rating of 7.0. We needn’t treat p2=1839.60 as anything special, although a little extra caution there is suggested, assuming it is reached. Here’s the latest chart. ______ UPDATE (Aug 4, 10:41 p.m.): The ‘mechanical’ long from 1818.70 barely survived the wickedest head-fake reversal we’ve seen in recent memory. All we can do now is stick with our game plan, implying a stop-loss at 1808.1, a single tick beneath today’s hellacious low. It should be held o-c-o with an order to close out the position at p=1829.20. _______ UPDATE (Aug 5, 10:48 p.m.): The trade stopped out for a $4000 loss. This was the first losing trade using a ‘mechanical’ signal in as long as I can remember. The Hidden Pivot Method doesn’t care how wacky a trading vehicle gets, but for gold, which only disappoints, I am starting to care. I won’t take it off the home page, but I have set a reminder for myself to not get suckered by it again. I will need rock-solid technical evidence before I give gold the bullish benefit of the doubt again for trading purposes. _______ UPDATE (Aug 6, 3:15 p.m.): We recouped $560 of the loss getting long an inch off the bottom of today’s vicious plunge.  See my 10:48 post in the Trading Room for the chart that nailed it. The trade was exited ahead of the weekend.