Bulls and bears both held their cards close to their chests last week. The latter cannot bluff effectively or for long, however, since bullion is in a bull market. However, the question on everyone’s minds is whether gold is overdue for a punitive correction of the $350 run-up since November. Price action relative to the pennant formation shown in the chart (inset) should tell us soon whether a bearish outcome is likely, but there is nothing that I can discern in the chart that argues for betting the ranch on a particular scenario. For now, brace for savage, meaningless feints. most of them lower, since the quasi-criminals responsible for gold’s gratuitous swoons have sufficient control over the futures to peg their price nearly anywhere over the short term. ______ UPDATE (Apr 3, 5:37 p.m. EDT): The ass-bandits took out the lower trendline on very light volume to begin the day, then bought aggressively to drive the futures nearly to the upper trendline by midday. I’ve altered the pennant somewhat to keep the futures within bounds, but don’t expect the thieves to pull the same stunt if the break-out is to the upside, since they won’t be able to trick buyers as easily as they suckered sellers. Here’s the new chart.  _______ UPDATE (Apr 4, 12:13 p.m.): Gold’s impaling spike through p=2016 this morning implies more upside over the near term to at least 2079.40. Here’s the chart — and yes, the pattern should work well for ‘mechanical’ buying on swoons. _______ UPDATE (Apr 5, 10:01 p.m.): The futures will be headed down to exactly 2018.00 straightaway if support at the 2029 midpoint Hidden Pivot fails. _______ UPDATE (Apr 6, 7:45 a.m.): Well, I guess we’ll just have to see about that. June Gold cracked $2029 overnight, then reversed as it nearly always does at a time of night when few in the English-speaking world are watching. What happened next was a bizarre, ratcheting rally that looked like something out of an abnormal-psych textbook. It reached the green line at 5:55 in the friggin’ morning, tripping what I would warrant as a succulent ‘mechanical’ short predicated on a still-indicated drop to D=$2018. We shall see. Here’s the graph, which would be Exhibit A if the slimeballs, clowns and government helpers who manipulate bullion in obscene ways were ever put on trial.