Here’s a heads up – Friday’s article will probably be the last one I publish until Monday, August 20th. I am taking a two-week summer vacation starting this weekend. If something out of the ordinary occurs, while I am on leave, I will write about it, but hopefully, things will muddle about and nothing will be important enough to write about that can’t wait for a week or two.
Most of you have the same question on your mind – what’s in store for gold?
One of the most popular methods to answer that question is via technical analysis (T.A.). Andy Hoffman hates technical analysis, he really hates it – because the markets are manipulated and T.A. assumes that the markets are not manipulated. Those that profit by T.A. are riding the coat tails of the evil Cartel and Andy has no time for any of them. That’s Andy’s view. Elliott Wave gurus like my friend JP Louvet and Robert Prechter do not believe in market manipulation. My friend trader David R. does believe in manipulation, but he is willing to bet his own money that it is not the banks that are doing the manipulating (he was worked in the gold and silver trading departments for several of the largest bullion banks), it’s the mega-funds. He doesn’t believe in central bank manipulation either. My friend Bill Fleckenstein is also convinced that the markets are not manipulated by the central banks. “Gold and silver are just things and do not have any special significance to them,” he says.
Well, Bill Murphy and Ted Butler would argue that the evidence is overwhelming that gold and silver ARE manipulated and it IS by the banks and the central banks. Our own Ranting Andy Hoffman wears out his keyboard every day ranting, backed up by solid data, that the markets are manipulated. That’s what makes this daily marathon so much damn fun. There are many bright minds out there, each with their own views and the views are as different as can be.
Me, I do believe that the markets are manipulated and that the banks, led by the central banks are behind it. I do believe that there are political reasons why they want to curtail the rise in gold and silver. Kill the messenger is at the foundation of the manipulation. Governments can’t sell bonds and central banks can’t support fiat currencies when the metals are soaring.
As for T.A., I’m not so sure how accurate it is but I still think a few of the best that practice it will be quite accurate. Those who practice T.A. have faith that their systems do work so the challenge then becomes which analyst do you listen to? They do not all see things the same way and their own T.A. leads to different conclusions. Occasionally I present the views of my friend, trader David R. Every time I do, Andy has a fit! But David R. is very, very good at what he does, very successful and has a resume as good as it gets. David R. would not be surprised to see gold drop 100 points, but he doesn’t guarantee it will happen. What he does guarantee is that gold is still in a powerful bull market and any drop from the current price range will be your last big buying opportunity. It will be “load up the truck” time. He is quite certain that gold will move up not hundreds of dollars but thousands of dollars. But first, he says, the “risk trade” has to end and the big money has to move out of the dollar and back into gold. We don’t discuss timing, but the move up is not far off. Larry Edelson still expects a significant drop in gold (unless it moves up well above $1700 in the near future), which will be followed by a huge rise. He expects this to sort itself out this fall.
I happen to like Alf Fields a lot. I have followed him for years and of course, when it comes to T.A., he is Jim Sinclair’s “number-one boy.” He is my favorite T.A. guru too.
Yesterday, I presented Alf’s views on where gold is, and where he believes it is going. Let me zero in on some of the highlights:
There are no certainties in the investment universe. Investors are forced to weigh up the various risks and assess the probabilities involved before committing themselves to a course of action. Current Elliott Wave and technical studies suggest that the probabilities now favor a strong rise in the gold price.
On 23 August 2011 when gold pushed above $1910 my guess was that there was a 90% probability of a severe correction. The target for the decline, as given in my keynote speech at the Sydney Gold Symposium in November, was circa $1480, the point at which the explosive extension in the gold price had started.
Extensions have a good record of retracing to the approximate point from which the extension began, in this case $1480. Market action during the decline is used to fine-tune a more accurate end of the correction. Gold never got down to target of $1480, stopping not very far away at $1523 in late December 2011. At $1523 all the minor subdivisions suggested that there was a 75% probability that this was the low and that the market would move into a strong upward move, probably the most vigorous of the bull market. A lesser alternative considered was that $1523 might only be the A wave of a larger A-B-C.
Gold IS going to $4500!
I spend most of my time writing about gold and silver, but there are other topics that are just as important to me. I rely heavily on information from John Williams (Shadowstats) and Gerald Celente (Trends Research) for insights that form the base for my understanding of the precious metals markets. With that in mind…
In today’s daily I feature a half a dozen pages (out of 43) of commentary from Gerald Celente’s exceptional Trends Journal, Summer 2012 Report. I have urged my readers to subscribe to Trends Research for several years now. If you haven’t yet done it, now would be a good time to start your subscription.
Celente sets the standards for peering into the future. His accuracy is uncanny and his vision is crystal clear. Today’s first article are some highlights from the 43-page Summer 2012 Trends Journal, which I consider a must read, if you want to know what lies ahead. Do yourself a favor and log onto the Trends Research home page and subscribe so you can read the entire report: