What seems like an extensive review is really only the basics in the gold sector. That is how involved the many disparate parts are and reflects the level of work…
Well, here came the short covering rally in the precious metals. By calling it that I don’t mean that it cannot turn into something more, but today was most assuredly driven by short covering as the US dollar unwound some of its speculative sponsorship. One can assume that large speculators took it on the chin on both ends, in the USD and in gold/silver as the Commercial traders had been aligned increasingly bearish and bullish, respectively.
Outside of the sound practice that is physical gold ownership in a time of monetary gamesmanship, the precious metals sector is all about speculation, at least according to 9 out of 10 chart jockeys and momentum junkies micro managing every short-term twist and turn.
Indeed, NFTRH manages gold, silver and the gold stocks on down to the short-term views as well, but that is only because the long-term views have stated that this is a time to be paying attention. Do we pay attention because we have waited so long to promote our orthodoxy and finally be right as gold bugs? No. We pay attention when a chart tells us to pay attention.
While we manage the shorter-term views (both macro fundamental and technical) rigorously in the weekly report and interim updates, here I’d like to dial out to the big monthly picture with 3 large (click to expand as needed) charts of HUI, Gold and Silver to see their stories, which are the reasons we are managing shorter-term views.
HUI Gold Bugs Index
First HUI monthly reviews the warnings to the analysis from 2012 and 2013. They were very clear and should have kept people out of much of harm’s way with respect to gold stock speculation.
Finally, we have seen the obvious (what most people will now take note of) kickoff to a short-term correction in the precious metals. Depending on the fundamental picture, we can plan on taking advantage of a buying opportunity as we have been noting over last couple of weeks.
Gold got blown up in 2 days with respect to the short-term rally. Watch for gold to bottom before silver as we likely transition into a phase of gold leadership over silver. Key support is from the 1300 down to 1270.
As the silver CoT report data systematically, almost robotically degraded into the September 2012 top (despite the seemingly bullish coming of QE3) NFTRH used to ask week after week “Who are those guys?” doing its best Butch Cassidy while evaluating the gathering short interest.
Below is the CoT graph from NFTRH 203 dated September 9, 2012. Week after week ‘those guys’ were ganging up on silver and we all know what soon happened; a harsh bear market down leg for the precious metals.
With silver heading to a break down or break out decision in the coming weeks and with its price down hard today, those bullish on silver and looking for buying opportunity could be buying today. It is hard to buy silver now, and that is probably the point.
There is a problem with biiwii.com’s server this morning and I was unable to do the Wednesday morning Key ETF update without constant interruptions. In its place this week we’ll simply go with a general update by email.
HUI has declined to 215 and made a marginal lower low from the start of the bear flag in the 216’s. We had been anticipating 210 as the critical support to a bottoming scenario. So, given the proclivity of this sector to test limits, let’s keep that alive.
The 10 vs. 2 year yield spread dropped, which was an in-day negative not to be given undue weight based on one day, but to be respected none the less. Interestingly, the sector went nowhere (GDX) to down (GDXJ, gold, silver) yesterday as the spread popped. Today spread down, sector up.
We should watch volumes today to see if there is enough conviction to get GDX, GDXJ and high profile individual miners above the moving average clusters they recently fell below. I’ll try to get a review of that after the market closes, assuming today stays positive.
Gold continues to look like it wants to test support at around 1270. A rise above 1300 could put that prospect in the rear view mirror, however.
It is interesting how sometimes a chart will do what it thinks it is supposed to do, even in the face of other information that says it should do something else. Silver’s chart, as we have been noting, was supposed to test support and that is what it has been doing while the rest of the precious metals complex rises.