Gold

June Gold looks headed to at least 3730.00, but that's provided it can get past the 3533.90 Hidden Pivot I ballyhooed here for a while. (The target worked well, to put it mildly, getting within 0.6% of the actual so-far top at 3510.) If June Gold were to drop by $200 now, it would not necessarily be reason for concern; for in fact, 3135.90 would trigger a 'mechanical' buy, stop 2938.00. These numbers come from the monthly composite chart (see thumbnail inset), where A=1618 in November 2022.  Best bet for tightly stopped bottom-fishing: 3261.50, the 'd' target of a pattern discernible on the hourly chart.  _______ UPDATE (May 12, 3:08 p.m. EDT): The savage drubbing gold has received today reversed from such an obvious place that a relapse seems likely. The low for June Gold occurred at 3211.20, a hair above an important low recorded on May 1. Look for the selling to continue to at least 3147.70 before the futures find a decent foothold. (Note: The pattern on which this target is based is poorly formed, so I would not advise trying to bottom-fish there with the usual tight stop-loss.) Alternatively, a pop above 3352.70, however unlikely at the moment, would put bulls solidly back in charge. The selling feels more engineered than organic, and I doubt it threatens the long-term bull market. However, we’ll let the charts decide, since the downtrend would likely have farther to go if bearish ABCD patterns of varying time frames start to exceed their ‘D’ targets routinely

I used a tiny one-off high to draw the pattern shown, but three confirmations at p suggest it will produce only winning outcomes for us. That would imply that a drop to D=3174.50 should be bought aggressively, albeit with the obligatory micro-stop possible using a 'camo' trigger. One thing the chart does NOT say is that June Gold will necessarily reach the target, since the initial penetration of the midpoint Hidden Pivot was anything but decisive. Notice, however, that it delivered a profitable 'mechanical' short - three of them, actually - and that's usually a tip-off that D/d will be reached. We don't much trade 'conventional' patterns any longer, but this one, with its crazy point 'a' and asymmetry, seemed ripe for exploitation. _______ UPDATE Apr 6, 5:52 p.m.): As the chart makes crystal-clear, June Gold is headed most immediately to 3472.7, the ‘midpoint Hidden Pivot’ of the pattern shown. It can be shorted there, but only with a delicate stop-loss, since the futures will be on their way to 3736.00 in a trice if they blow past the midpoint resistance without hesitation. You could always try shorting up there, but wouldn’t it be far better to shove your accursed doubts aside for once and catch an almost certain 300-point rally?   

So many traders evidently anticipated Friday's low that the futures never got there. The peanut gallery would have been focused on Wednesday's 3270.80 bottom as a logical place for a test of support. It was not to be, however, and my 3264.60 midpoint support finished even further out of the money when the June contract turned higher from 3274.80, a number in the middle of Nowheresville. The subsequent bounce was impulsive on the hourly chart, implying bulls had a reason to hold a position over the weekend. This seems a little too pat to me, but I won't let skepticism cloud my thinking if bullion wants to go higher when the futures start trading again Sunday afternoon.  _______ UPDATE (May 1, 12:52 p.m. EDT): Gold’s weakness appears to be merely corrective, and you can therefore expect an upturn from no lower than 3174.50. That’s a Hidden Pivot support that lies about $80 below the current price, 3225. A second possibility, dimming at the moment, would be for this morning’s so-far low at 3209.40 to support a strong rally. That’s a ‘secondary’ Hidden Pivot, and it is capable of turning things around. The so-far moderate decline since April 22 occurred after June Gold peaked within 0.6% of a 3533.90 Hidden Pivot I first featured here when the futures were trading below $2800. It stood to be a potential stumbling block, and that has been the case. However, I doubt that gold has topped for good and expect it to reach $ 5,000 an ounce or more eventually. 

You can use the chart to judge for yourself the strength of gold’s uptrend as it progresses. The move is extraordinarily powerful, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean the rally couldn’t reverse sharply at any time with no warning. We’ve been using a 3533.90 target for the last 600 or so points, but are the odds still compelling that gold will get there? Here’s how to read the chart so that you can determine this for yourself. It shows four possible scenarios, ranked from strongest to weakest. All began with Friday’s 57.80-point reversal off a record 3371.90. That triggered a theoretical sell signal at the green line (3314.10), the first such signal in two months. The implication is that the futures will now fall to at least 3256.30, the ‘midpoint Hidden Pivot (p), enabling at least a partial profit. However, if the June contract doesn’t quite get there, and instead blasts off for new record highs, that would strongly imply 3533 will be reached, and quickly. A somewhat less bullish outcome (2) would be a strong bounce to new highs from the red line (p). That would follow the rule that powerful trends produce corrective ABCDs that do not reach their ‘D’ targets, but instead reverse from the midpoint pivot. Alternatively, if gold penetrates p the first time sellers make contact with it, that would increase the odds that D=3140.70 will be reached. And finally, if the downtrend were to crash ‘d’, that would raise the possibility that gold has made an important high at 3371.90 and is unlikely to reach 3533. I am enthusiastically recommending this do-it-yourself exercise to anyone who is interested in learning how the Hidden Pivot Method works and applying it to your own analysis. _______ UPDATE: (Apr 21, 9:21 a.m.): The blast-off scenario detailed

I've drawn a cautionary pattern because gold is long overdue for a full abcd correction, and because Friday's high occurred almost precisely at a 3261.40 target I'd posted in the chat room around 10:00 a.m.  Assuming the high endures, the rABC pattern implies a pullback to the 2868.60 'd' target is likely. (Note: You'll need to shift 'c' upward if gold continues to rise.) The years-old 'a-b' segment remains viable because no pullback since this leg was completed in 2021 has reached 'd'.  If it does now, that would amount to a 12% correction. You can bottom-fish with a tight stop at p, but be aware that its decisive breach, wherever it occurs, would warn of more slippage to 'd' or lower. _______ UPDATE (Apr 14, 1:25 p.m.): The correction predicted for gold using the weekly chart (see ‘above) would be quite painful, but there is a milder scenario suggested by the hourly chart reproduced here. June Gold, playing coy, has not yet tripped a theoretical sell signal by touching the green line (x=3205.20), but if and when it does, it should be presumed bound for the midpoint Hidden Pivot support (p) at 3147.40. We’ll be better able to judge the strength of the downtrend after we’ve seen sellers interact with p. A decisive penetration on first contact would imply more weakness, as would a subsequent overshoot of d=3031.80. Both levels can be bottom-fished with a tight stop-loss. (Note: So much for weakness!  The futures still haven't tripped a sell signal, never mind sold off. The chart has been updated and slightly revised, since the original ‘c’ coordinate was slightly off.)

The corrective pattern shown should eliminate all the guesswork, since it says quite clearly that June Gold will fall to at least 2941.49 before it can consolidate for a run-up to new record highs above $3500. If the futures should rally from Friday's lows near 3032 to the green line (x=3136.60), don't get caught up in the excitement, since that would trigger a juicy 'mechanical' short. The 2941.4 downside target will be a back-up-the-truck number for attempting tightly stopped bottom-fishing, but it will take at least 10-12 trading days for the futures to get there. ______ UPDATE (Apr 9, 9:38 a.m.): The futures went no lower than 2970 before launching anew.  This morning's sensational rally looks bound for a minimum 3141.40, a further $50 above.  ______ UPDATE (Apr 11, 9:57 a.m. EDT): Gold is head-butting the 3261.40 target of this pattern and could use a rest. If bulls shred their way past it, it will shorten the odds that my big-picture target at 3533 target will be reached, and probably sooner rather than later.

Gold's steep rally has left doubters on the sidelines since January, a high price to pay for hesitating. The rally looks bound most immediately for 3198.70, a presumptive weigh station en route to the 3533.90 target of a larger pattern noted here earlier. That number is associated with a 'midpoint Hidden Pivot' at 3037 that should slow bulls down for a while, perhaps 2-3 weeks.  If not, and the April futures forge intrepidly higher, it would shorten the odds of a run-up to 3553.90.  An additional 'hidden' resistance you should prepare for lies at 3285.80. It can be shorted with a 'camo' trigger fashioned from the 15-minute chart.

The small poke through our longstanding Hidden Pivot target at 3040.90 implies prices will continue higher, notwithstanding occasional shakedowns by the sleazeball who control bullion markets.  Although I recently billboarded an ambitious target at 3533 to lift your imagination, a more immediate prospect is 3198.70, the 'D' target of a smaller pattern. A pullback to 2932.80 would trigger a 'mechanical' buy signal, but the 2844.00 stop-loss is unacceptably large.  Use a 'camouflage' trigger for this one, meaning an entry set-up crafted from 15-minute charts or lower once 2932.80 has been touched.

Once again, we return to a familiar target at 3040.90 that has kept us on the right side of the trend since late 2024, when there were nagging doubts.  I could have done with a little more consolidation before the April contract broke out of a fraught range last week, but I don't have much control over such things; I only try to see them coming. The daily chart suggests possible success bottom-fishing a moderate pullback to 2958.30 as the week begins.  I put out a target last week at 3230 that came from a 'blended' monthly chart, but let's upgrade that to the 3533.90 target shown. A stall precisely at p=3037.70 would help validate the pattern. It would also set up a promising 'mechanical' buy on a pullback to x=2789.60 once the futures have reached the sweet spot between p and p2.