In our opinion no speculative positions in gold, silver and mining stocks are now justified from the risk/reward perspective. However, day-traders might consider a small speculative long position in silver.
The precious metals sector moved sharply lower yesterday--in tune with its medium-term trend. The decline was to a large extent connected with the breakout in the USD Index. It seems that it is the U.S. dollar that will determine the short-term moves in PMs and miners in the coming days and in today’s alert we focus on this relationship. The CCI Index seems to be in a particularly interesting position as well and this is something that gold & silver traders should be aware of.
Let’s start with the USD Index chart (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
The USD Index moved higher once again – this time it managed to move above the Sep. 2013 high. The RSI indicator suggests an extremely overbought condition and the cyclical turning point is upon us. The combination of the above suggests that a corrective downswing has become very likely.
The breakout indeed materialized yesterday, but it has not been confirmed yet (only 1 daily close above the Sep. 2013 high and we would like to see 3 of them before saying that the move is confirmed), which means that this makes the situation only a little more bullish. The combination of these factors seems more important than the unconfirmed breakout, so it seems quite likely that we will see a move lower shortly.
In yesterday’s Forex Trading Alert we commented on the possible reversal in the currency markets this week:
Please note that we will have a decision or at least more information regarding the European QE on Thursday - perhaps this will be the day when currencies reverse their direction for some time. We will keep our eyes open and report to you accordingly.
It could be the case that even if the decision that will be made on Thursday is bullish for the USD Index (big QE in Europe), we could see a “sell rumor but buy the fact” type of reaction. In other words, given the significantly overbought situation in the USD Index and the proximity of the turning point, we could see a reversal no matter what the officials say on Thursday.
The unconfirmed breakout in the USD Index translated into an unconfirmed breakdown in gold.
The decline in gold took place on huge volume which is a bearish factor, but, just as it was the case with the USD Index, until we see a confirmation of the breakdown, we shouldn’t get too excited. Yes, in our opinion the medium-term trend remains down, so the surprises will be to the downside, but at this time it’s not that certain that the decline has already begun. The breakdown (below the previous lows and the rising medium-term support line) is not confirmed at this time and gold hasn’t moved below the declining support line (the upper of them, based on the daily closing prices).
In other words, if the USD Index corrects, then we will be likely to see gold move higher in the short term. If, given the correction, gold stays above the rising support/resistance line, we will have a good possibility that the next big downswing will already be underway and it will probably be a great time to enter a short position.
While we’re at discussing the gold-USD link, we were asked if there [was] a chance that we could see a month long rally in gold with the likelihood of a falling dollar as we [were] at the cyclical turning point. In our opinion such possibility exists, but yesterday’s big-volume decline made it more probable that we will see a rather limited upswing. If gold soars more than $100 or so and mining stocks also rally, then it could change the medium-term picture to bullish. At this time, however, the volume suggests something opposite – we have been seeing higher volume with lower prices and low volume with higher prices. We will be monitoring the markets for signs of significant strength and report to you if we see them. For now – we think the medium-term remains bearish.
Commenting yesterday’s SLV chart we wrote that “we [could] expect the volatility to increase in the coming days based on silver’s cyclical turning point” and we didn’t have to wait long for this to become reality. However, the move lower might not be the thing that was likely to take place based on the turning point – since silver is still before it, we could actually see a sharp upswing based on it. In fact, it still seems quite likely given the situation in the USD Index. Also, please note that the RSI indicator is once again oversold, which has previously meant that we were at a local bottom or a very close to one.
Our yesterday’s comments remain up-to-date:
The most interesting thing about the turning points in the USD and silver is that the one in silver is several days behind the one in the dollar. This paints a picture in which the USD Index declines first, causing silver and the rest of the precious metals sector to rally, perhaps sharply, but then silver’s turning point “kicks in” and metals and miners reverse and start declining. Let’s keep in mind that silver tends to outperform in the final part of a given upswing, so we could see a jump in the price of the white metal right before a downturn. Naturally, there are no guarantees that the above scenario will be realized, but it seems quite likely in our view.
What can we infer from the mining stocks chart?
Not much. The decline hasn’t taken mining stocks below the declining support line, which means that there has been no breakdown. Therefore, the situation hasn’t really changed based on yesterday’s decline. We could still see some short-term strength, based mainly on the buy signal from the Stochastic Indicator. Similarly, to what we’ve seen in gold, the volume on which miners rallied last week was small, suggesting that this rally was just a temporary phenomenon.
Before summarizing, we would like to reply to another question that we have just received and we would like to provide you with one additional chart.
We were asked about our best approximation of the HUI Index if Dow was at 17,000 and gold at $1,100. Of course, there are no guarantees, but our best bet at this time is 150. The 17,000 assumption about the Dow doesn’t change much, as the HUI to gold ratio managed to slide in the past 2 years despite the rally in the former (despite short-term upswings, that is). It seems quite likely to us that when the precious metals sector finally bottoms, the HUI to gold ratio will move to its 2000 and 2009 lows – close to the 0.13 level. Multiplying this by 1,100 leaves us with 143 and 150 is the strong support that is closest to this level.
The CCI Index (proxy for the commodity sector) has just moved to the major, long-term support and stopped the decline at this level. That’s the upper part of our target area for this index – the one that we featured weeks ago. The commodity sector is likely to at least take a breather before declining once again, and this is a short-term bullish sign for gold as well.
Summing up, while the medium-term has been down, the short-term outlook for the precious metals sector seems rather favorable based on the extremely overbought situation in the USD Index. The latter is likely to correct sooner rather than later based i.a. on its cyclical turning point and it’s quite likely that it will cause a move higher in PMs and miners.
To summarize: Trading capital (our opinion): No positions Long-term capital (our opinion): No positions Insurance capital (our opinion): Full position
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