It seems that the big downswing I’ve been forecasting has just begun. Gold declined on Jun. 3, and there is no strong reason for it to go back.

Yesterday’s (Jun. 3) daily slide came as a surprise that seems temporary… to most investors. But you know that it’s just the first crack in the golden dam.

The Downswing Is on the Way

Gold has ridiculously good fundamentals. We have open-ended QEs – money is being pumped into the system at an unprecedented pace, even when stocks are well beyond their all-time highs. The world has been in a pandemic for over a year, and the economies were hit hard. And yet, despite all these positive news, gold – the king of safe havens – did not manage to soar above its 2011 highs and then stay above them. Given how extremely positive the fundamental situation is, gold’s reaction is even more extremely bearish. This market is simply not ready to soar without declining significantly first. Bull markets and bear markets move in stages, and even though this time the final slide was postponed multiple times, it’s clear that gold is not ready to soar to new highs without completing its final stage – the downswing.

The history is rhyming regarding the shapes of the price moves as well. Just as gold moved back and forth, forming three distinctive tops in 2008 and 2011-2012, we saw the same thing now – between the August 2020 top and the recent top, which seems to have been the final breath of the short-term bull.

I’ve been emphasizing this self-similar pattern for many weeks, and it seems that the bullish part thereof is now over. Also, it seems that it ended at the combination of two triangle-vertex-based reversal points.

The triangle-vertex-based reversal points have worked multiple times on the precious metals market, and it’s no wonder that we just saw them work once again.

On Wednesday (Jun. 2), gold closed ~$5 higher, and this move took place on relatively low volume. In fact, gold hasn’t rallied on volume this low since Apr. 26. This was a bearish sign for the short term, and indeed after the Apr. 26 session, gold moved lower in the following days.

And, right on cue, gold declined by $36.60 in yesterday’s trading. While this decline might seem surprising to some, it’s actually a perfectly natural thing for gold to do right now.

The low-volume daily rally was only a confirmation, as we knew that Tuesday’s daily reversal was critical all along – based on the triangle-vertex-based reversal we recently saw. Combination of this with highly overbought RSI, a sell signal from the stochastic indicator, and, most importantly, the analogies to how the situation in gold developed in 2008 and 2012, provides us with an extremely bearish price prediction for gold.

The Analogies to the Past

Many other factors are pointing to these similarities, and two of them are the size of the correction relative to the preceding decline and to the previous rally. In 2012 and 2008, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. Gold was very close to this level this year, and since the history tends to rhyme more than it tends to repeat itself to the letter, it seems that the top might already be in.

In both years, 2008 and 2012, there were three tops. Furthermore, the rallies that took gold to the second and third top were similar. In 2008, the rally preceding the third top was bigger than the rally preceding the second top. In 2012, they were more or less equal. I marked those rallies with blue lines in the above chart – the current situation is very much in between the above-mentioned situations. Also, the current rally is bigger than the one that ended in early January 2021 but not significantly so.

Remember what happened when gold previously attempted to break above major long-term highs? It was in 2008 and gold was breaking above its 1980 high. Gold wasn’t ready to truly continue its bull market without plunging first. This downswing was truly epic, especially in the case of silver and mining stocks; and now even gold’s price patterns are like what we saw in 2008.

My previous comments on the analogies to 2008 and 2012 remain up-to-date:

Back in 2008, gold corrected to 61.8% Fibonacci retracement, but it stopped rallying approximately when the USD Index started to rally, and the general stock market accelerated its decline.

Taking into consideration that the general stock market has probably just topped, and the USD Index is about to rally, then gold is likely to slide for the final time in the following weeks/months. Both above-mentioned markets support this bearish scenario and so do the self-similar patterns in terms of gold price itself.

What would change my mind with regard to gold itself? Perhaps if it broke above its January 2021 highs and confirmed this breakout. This would be an important technical indication on its own, but it would also be something very different from what happened in 2008 and 2012. If that happened along with strength in mining stocks, it would be very bullish. Still, if the above happened, and miners didn’t react at all or they declined, it would not be bullish despite the gains in the gold price itself.

The March 2021 low formed well below the previous low, but as far as other things are concerned, the current situation is similar to what happened in 2012. 

The relatively broad bottom with higher lows is what preceded both final short-term rallies – the current one, and the 2012 one. Their shape as well as the shape of the decline that preceded these broad bottoms is very similar. In both cases, the preceding decline had some back-and-forth trading in its middle, and the final rally picked up pace after breaking above the initial short-term high.

Interestingly, the 2012 rally ended on huge volume, which is exactly what we saw also on May 19 this year. Consequently, forecasting much higher silver or gold prices here doesn’t seem to be justified based on the historical analogies.

The thing I would like to emphasize here is that gold didn’t form the final top at the huge-volume reversal on Sep. 13, 2012. It moved back and forth for a while and moved a bit above that high-volume top, and only then the final top took place (in early October 2012). 

The same happened in September and in October 2008. Gold reversed on huge volume in mid-September, and it was approximately the end of the rally. The final top, however, formed after some back-and-forth trading and a move slightly above the previous high.

Consequently, the fact that gold moved a bit above its own high-volume reversal (May 19, 2021) is not an invalidation of the analogy, but rather its continuation.

There’s one more thing I would like to add, and it’s that back in 2012, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level – furthermore, the same happened in 2008 as you can see in the below chart. Consequently, the fact that gold moved above its 50% Fibonacci retracement doesn’t break the analogy either. And even if gold moves to $1,940 or so, it will not break it. It’s not likely that it is going to move that high, as in both cases –in 2008 and 2012 – gold moved only somewhat above its high-volume reversal before forming the final top. So, as this year’s huge-volume reversal took place close to the 50% retracement and not the 61.8% retracement, it seems that we’ll likely see a temporary move above it, which will create the final top. And that’s exactly what we see happening so far this week.

The lower part of the above chart shows how the USD Index and the general stock market performed when gold ended its late-2012 rally and was starting its epic decline. In short, that was when the USD Index bottomed, and when the general stock market topped.

Also, please note that while it might seem bullish that gold managed to rally above its declining black resistance line recently (the one based on the 2020 top and the 2021 top), please note that the same happened in 2012 – I marked the analogous line with red. The breakout didn’t prevent gold from sliding. When the price reached the line, we saw a short-term bounce, but nothing more than that – the gold price fell through it in the following weeks.

Oh, and by the way, the Fed wants to convince the market that inflation is just transitory in order to prevent the 10-year yield from rising. Let’s ask ourselves now what the Fed would appreciate with respect to gold prices. Exactly, it would be awfully convenient for the price of gold to decline in order to prove the point of the transitory nature of inflation.

Inflation? What inflation? Even gold prices are declining…

Now, as you know, I’m not a fan of all the conspiracy theories that are out there, and I’m not the first to shout gold manipulation or silver manipulation every time the yellow or while metal goes down, but I also know that being realistic is one of my strengths. With the situation being what it is, and since the communities of top investment bankers and the community of officials interlace, I think that we have yet another reason to expect that the gold price is going to slide in the following weeks/months.

Meanwhile, the USD Index soared right after confirming its short-term breakout, suggesting that the analogy to 2016 and the similarity to how it bottomed (triple bottom with lower lows) in mid-2020 remains intact. And so does the bullish outlook for the universally-hated-and-massively-shorted U.S. currency.

The USD Index paused at the rising resistance line based on the previous lows, and once it rallies back above it, it will be clear to many traders that the trend has already reversed. It will even be clearer when the rally gains more strength and when the precious metals decline even profoundly than yesterday.

Silver and Gold Miners

Having said that, let’s take a look at other markets.

The three notable events that we can see on the above chart are:

1. Silver has just broken below its rising support line right after it failed to break above its early-January highs for the fourth time. And this decline happened right after the intraday reversal when silver had outperformed gold. This is exactly how big silver declines tend to start.
2. The GDX ETF – a proxy for senior miners – has just invalidated its breakout above its January highs. Invalidations of breakouts are strong bearish signals in general, and this one is crystal-clear.
3. The GDXJ ETF – a proxy for junior miners – has never reached its January highs, but it has just invalidated a breakout above its February high. It has also declined more (4.58%) than the GDX (3.46%). The juniors are declining more than the seniors – in tune with my previous analyses.

Overall, it seems that the big downswing has just begun.

Thank you for reading our free analysis today. Please note that the above is just a small fraction of the full analyses that our subscribers enjoy on a regular basis. They include multiple premium details such as the interim targets for gold and mining stocks that could be reached in the next few weeks. We invite you to subscribe now and read today’s issue right away.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Founder, Editor-in-chief

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Gold rallying on low volume yesterday was a clear bearish sign; the yellow metal dropped about $15 in today’s pre-market trading. What will happen next?

Yesterday’s (Jun. 2) and today’s sessions were quite rich in signals for gold, silver, and mining stocks, but only if one knows where to watch.

Gold: Short-Term Moves

Gold closed ~$5 higher yesterday, and this move took place on relatively low volume. In fact, gold hasn’t rallied on volume this low since Apr. 26. This is a bearish sign for the short term, and indeed after the Apr. 26 session, gold moved lower in the following days.

And, right on cue, gold was about $15 down in today’s pre-market trading. While this decline might seem surprising to some, it’s actually a perfectly natural thing for gold to do right now.

The low-volume daily rally was only a confirmation, as we knew that Tuesday’s daily reversal was critical all along – based on the triangle-vertex-based reversal we recently saw. Combination of this with highly overbought RSI, a sell signal from the stochastic indicator, and, most importantly, the analogies to how the situation in gold developed in 2008 and 2012, provides us with an extremely bearish outlook for gold.

Many other factors are pointing to these similarities, and two of them are the size of the correction relative to the preceding decline and to the previous rally. In 2012 and 2008, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. Gold was very close to this level this year, and since the history tends to rhyme more than it tends to repeat itself to the letter, it seems that the top might already be in.

In both years, 2008 and 2012, there were three tops. Furthermore, the rallies that took gold to the second and third top were similar. In 2008, the rally preceding the third top was bigger than the rally preceding the second top. In 2012, they were more or less equal. I marked those rallies with blue lines in the above chart – the current situation is very much in between the above-mentioned situations. Also, the current rally is bigger than the one that ended in early January 2021 but not significantly so.

Since I realize that it’s most difficult to stay on track right at the top, let me remind you about two key facts:

1. We have open-ended QEs – money is being pumped into the system at an unprecedented pace, even when stocks are well beyond their all-time highs. The world has been in a pandemic for over a year, and the economies were hit hard. And yet, gold – the king of safe hedges – did not manage to soar above its 2011 highs and then stay above them. Given how extremely positive the fundamental situation is, gold’s reaction is even more extremely bearish. This market is simply not ready to soar without declining significantly first. The bull market and bear markets move in stages, and the final slide was postponed multiple times, but it’s clear that gold is not ready to soar to new highs without completing this final stage – the downswing.
2. Remember what happened when gold previously attempted to break above major long-term highs? It was in 2008 and gold was breaking above its 1980 high. Gold wasn’t ready to truly continue its bull market without plunging first. This downswing was truly epic, especially in the case of silver and mining stocks; and now even gold’s price patterns are like what we saw in 2008.

Lessons Learned From History

My previous comments on the analogies to 2008 and 2012 remain up-to-date:

Back in 2008, gold corrected to 61.8% Fibonacci retracement, but it stopped rallying approximately when the USD Index started to rally, and the general stock market accelerated its decline.

Taking into consideration that the general stock market has probably just topped, and the USD Index is about to rally, then gold is likely to slide for the final time in the following weeks/months. Both above-mentioned markets support this bearish scenario and so do the self-similar patterns in terms of gold price itself.

What would change my mind with regard to gold itself? Perhaps if it broke above its January 2021 highs and confirmed this breakout. This would be an important technical indication on its own, but it would also be something very different from what happened in 2008 and 2012. If that happened along with strength in mining stocks, it would be very bullish. Still, if the above happened, and miners didn’t react at all or they declined, it would not be bullish despite the gains in the gold price itself.

The March 2021 low formed well below the previous low, but as far as other things are concerned, the current situation is similar to what happened in 2012. 

The relatively broad bottom with higher lows is what preceded both final short-term rallies – the current one, and the 2012 one. Their shape as well as the shape of the decline that preceded these broad bottoms is very similar. In both cases, the preceding decline had some back-and-forth trading in its middle, and the final rally picked up pace after breaking above the initial short-term high.

Interestingly, the 2012 rally ended on huge volume, which is exactly what we saw also on May 19 this year. Consequently, forecasting much higher silver or gold prices here doesn’t seem to be justified based on the historical analogies.

The thing I would like to emphasize here is that gold didn’t form the final top at the huge-volume reversal on Sep. 13, 2012. It moved back and forth for a while and moved a bit above that high-volume top, and only then the final top took place (in early October 2012). 

The same happened in September and in October 2008. Gold reversed on huge volume in mid-September, and it was approximately the end of the rally. The final top, however, formed after some back-and-forth trading and a move slightly above the previous high.

Consequently, the fact that gold moved a bit above its own high-volume reversal (May 19, 2021) is not an invalidation of the analogy, but rather its continuation.

There’s one more thing I would like to add, and it’s that back in 2012, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level – furthermore, the same happened in 2008 as you can see in the below chart. Consequently, the fact that gold moved above its 50% Fibonacci retracement doesn’t break the analogy either. And even if gold moves to $1,940 or so, it will not break it. It’s not likely that it is going to move that high, as in both cases –in 2008 and 2012 – gold moved only somewhat above its high-volume reversal before forming the final top. So, as this year’s huge-volume reversal took place close to the 50% retracement and not the 61.8% retracement, it seems that we’ll likely see a temporary move above it, which will create the final top. And that’s exactly what we see happening so far this week.

The lower part of the above chart shows how the USD Index and the general stock market performed when gold ended its late-2012 rally and was starting its epic decline. In short, that was when the USD Index bottomed, and when the general stock market topped.

Also, please note that while it might seem bullish that gold managed to rally above its declining black resistance line recently (the one based on the 2020 top and the 2021 top), please note that the same happened in 2012 – I marked the analogous line with red. The breakout didn’t prevent gold from sliding. When the price reached the line, we saw a short-term bounce, but nothing more than that – the gold price fell through it in the following weeks.

Meanwhile, the USD Index has just confirmed its short-term breakout, suggesting that the analogy to 2016 and the similarity to how it bottomed (triple bottom with lower lows) in mid-2020 remains intact – and so does the bullish outlook for the universally-hated-and-massively-shorted U.S. currency.

The USD Index reversed yesterday in a supposedly bearish manner, but today’s pre-market price action shows that it was just a fake reversal. It seems that a major bottom in the USDX is already in, as the breakout above the declining short-term resistance line (that started with the April top) was verified. And with the outlook for the USD Index being bullish, the implications for the precious metals market are bearish.

Thank you for reading our free analysis today. Please note that the above is just a small fraction of the full analyses that our subscribers enjoy on a regular basis. They include multiple premium details such as the interim targets for gold and mining stocks that could be reached in the next few weeks. We invite you to subscribe now and read today’s issue right away.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Founder, Editor-in-chief

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Silver and mining stocks jumped on intraday highs only to pull back at day’s close. In other words, they moved nowhere – another sign of a market top.

The price moves we’ve seen so far this week are particularly interesting. And I don’t mean the boring action in the GDX (which serves its own purpose as a signal), but the reversals in gold and silver.

What Can History Teach Us?

In the case of gold, the reversal took gold – temporarily – to new highs, but then gold declined once again. At the moment of writing these words (Jun. 2), gold is trading back below $1,900.

This price action took place on relatively significant volume (not as significant as the price action in silver, though), which suggests that the reversal is important. Moreover, that’s only a confirmation, as we knew that the reversal was important all along – based on the triangle-vertex-based reversal we recently saw. Combination of this with highly overbought RSI, a sell signal from the stochastic indicator, and, most importantly, the analogies to how the situation in gold developed in 2008 and 2012, provides us with an extremely bearish outlook for gold.

Many other factors are pointing to these similarities, and two of them are the size of the correction relative to the preceding decline and to the previous rally. In 2012 and 2008, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. Gold was very close to this level this year, and since the history tends to rhyme more than it tends to repeat itself to the letter, it seems that the top might already be in.

In both years, 2008 and 2012, there were three tops. Furthermore, the rallies that took gold to the second and third top were similar. In 2008, the rally preceding the third top was bigger than the rally preceding the second top. In 2012, they were more or less equal. I marked those rallies with blue lines in the above chart – the current situation is very much in between the above-mentioned situations. Also, the current rally is bigger than the one that ended in early January 2021 but not significantly so.

Since I realize that it’s most difficult to stay on track right at the top, let me remind you about two key facts:

1. We have open-ended QEs – money is being pumped into the system at an unprecedented pace, even when stocks are well beyond their all-time highs. The world has been in a pandemic for over a year, and the economies were hit hard. And yet, gold – the king of safe hedges – did not manage to soar above its 2011 highs and then stay above them. Given how extremely positive the fundamental situation is, gold’s reaction is even more extremely bearish. This market is simply not ready to soar without declining significantly first. The bull market and bear markets move in stages, and the final slide was postponed multiple times, but it’s clear that gold is not ready to soar to new highs without completing this final stage – the downswing.
2. Remember what happened when gold previously attempted to break above major long-term highs? It was in 2008 and gold was breaking above its 1980 high. Gold wasn’t ready to truly continue its bull market without plunging first. This downswing was truly epic, especially in the case of silver and mining stocks; and now even gold’s price patterns are like what we saw in 2008.

Back in 2008, gold corrected to 61.8% Fibonacci retracement, but it stopped rallying approximately when the USD Index started to rally, and the general stock market accelerated its decline.

Taking into consideration that the general stock market has probably just topped, and the USD Index is about to rally, then gold is likely to slide for the final time in the following weeks/months. Both above-mentioned markets support this bearish scenario and so do the self-similar patterns in terms of gold price itself.

What would change my mind with regard to gold itself? Perhaps if it broke above its January 2021 highs and confirmed this breakout. This would be an important technical indication on its own, but it would also be something very different from what happened in 2008 and 2012. If that happened along with strength in mining stocks, it would be very bullish. Still, if the above happened, and miners didn’t react at all or they declined, it would not be bullish despite the gains in the gold price itself.

The March 2021 low formed well below the previous low, but as far as other things are concerned, the current situation is similar to what happened in 2012. 

The relatively broad bottom with higher lows is what preceded both final short-term rallies – the current one, and the 2012 one. Their shape as well as the shape of the decline that preceded these broad bottoms is very similar. In both cases, the preceding decline had some back-and-forth trading in its middle, and the final rally picked up pace after breaking above the initial short-term high.

Interestingly, the 2012 rally ended on huge volume, which is exactly what we saw also on May 19 this year. Consequently, forecasting much higher gold prices here doesn’t seem to be justified based on the historical analogies.

The thing I would like to emphasize here is that gold didn’t form the final top at the huge-volume reversal on Sep. 13, 2012. It moved back and forth for a while and moved a bit above that high-volume top, and only then the final top took place (in early October 2012). 

The same happened in September and in October 2008. Gold reversed on huge volume in mid-September, and it was approximately the end of the rally. The final top, however, formed after some back-and-forth trading and a move slightly above the previous high.

Consequently, the fact that gold moved a bit above its own high-volume reversal (May 19, 2021) is not an invalidation of the analogy, but rather its continuation.

There’s one more thing I would like to add, and it’s that back in 2012, gold corrected to approximately the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level – furthermore, the same happened in 2008 as you can see in the below chart. Consequently, the fact that gold moved above its 50% Fibonacci retracement doesn’t break the analogy either. And even if gold moves to $1,940 or so, it will not break it. It’s not likely that it is going to move that high, as in both cases –in 2008 and 2012 – gold moved only somewhat above its high-volume reversal before forming the final top. So, as this year’s huge-volume reversal took place close to the 50% retracement and not the 61.8% retracement, it seems that we’ll likely see a temporary move above it, which will create the final top. And that’s exactly what we see happening so far.

The lower part of the above chart shows how the USD Index and the general stock market performed when gold ended its late-2012 rally and was starting its epic decline. In short, that was when the USD Index bottomed, and when the general stock market topped.

Also, please note that while it might seem bullish that gold managed to rally above its declining black resistance line recently (the one based on the 2020 top and the 2021 top), please note that the same happened in 2012 – I marked the analogous line with red. The breakout didn’t prevent gold from sliding. When the price reached the line, we saw a short-term bounce, but nothing more than that – the gold price fell through it in the following weeks.

Silver and Mining Stocks

Having said that, let’s check what silver and mining stocks did.

Silver has barely moved in terms of the closing prices. However, it has rallied significantly on an intraday basis – more than gold did; and the volume on which it happened was more notable than the one in gold.

In other words, silver did exactly what it tends to do at market tops. And we can say the same thing about the mining stocks.

Gold miners moved higher, but the move took place on relatively low volume, so it was nothing to write home about. Miners refused to follow gold higher, but they seem likely to follow it lower as soon as they get a good trigger for it (a decline in gold). Actually, gold stocks can decline even without a decline in gold, at least initially – that’s how the 2012-2013 decline started, after all.

The clearest of the recent signs coming from mining stocks is the fact that gold rallied by almost $30 last week, and the HUI Index (flagship proxy for gold stocks) went down slightly. This is extremely bearish.

Meanwhile, the USD Index has just confirmed its short-term breakout, suggesting that the analogy to 2016 and the similarity to how it bottomed (triple bottom with lower lows) in mid-2020 remains intact. And so does the bullish outlook for the universally-hated-and-massively-shorted U.S. currency.

Thank you for reading our free analysis today. Please note that the above is just a small fraction of the full analyses that our subscribers enjoy on a regular basis. They include multiple premium details such as the interim targets for gold and mining stocks that could be reached in the next few weeks. We invite you to subscribe now and read today’s issue right away.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Founder, Editor-in-chief

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The FED has recently been tricked with its own money. Could the central bank’s scary reverse repos become a treat for the USDX?

The USD Index (USDX)

With the ghosts of 2015 attempting to scare the U.S. Federal Reserve (FED) into tapering its asset purchases, the latest reverse repo nightmare could be gold, silver and mining stocks version of the boogeyman. Case in point: with the liquidity fright helping the USD Index sleep better at night, the greenback should benefit from the FED’s latest house of horrors: And with the central bank’s daily reverse repos hitting an all-time high of $485 billion on May 27 (with another $479 billion sold on May 28), Halloween may come early this year.

Please see below:

To explain, the green line above tracks the daily reverse repo transactions executed by the FED, while the red line above tracks the federal funds rate. If you focus your attention on the red line, you can see that after the $400 billion level was breached in December 2015, the FED’s rate-hike cycle began. Thus, with current inflation dwarfing 2015 levels and U.S. banks practically throwing cash at the FED, is this time really different?

Likewise, with reduced liquidity poised to bolster the USD Index, not only are the fundamentals trending up but also the technicals. The USD Index jumped above its declining resistance line based on May’s highs, as well as the declining resistance line that started with the late-March high. This is important not only (and not primarily) because of the double-breakout. It’s important and particularly bullish, as it emphasizes that the third – and quite likely the final – short-term bottom in a row is already in.

In addition, the USD Index might be in the early innings of forming an inverted head & shoulders pattern. For context, an inverted H&S pattern is a bullish development that if formed, could usher the USD Index well above 94.5 (to about 97-98). However, completing the right shoulder requires an upward breach of 93 (the blue line), so at this point, it’s more of an indication than a confirmation.

Please see below:

For more context, I wrote previously:

This week’s move lower is a continuation, and most likely the final part, of a specific multi-bottom pattern that the USD Index exhibited recently.

I marked those situations with green. The thing is that the U.S. currency first declined practically without any corrections, but at some point it started to move back and forth while making new lows. The third distinctive bottom was the final one. Interestingly, the continuous decline took place for about a month, and the back-and-forth declines took another month (approximately). In July 2020, the USDX fell like a rock, and in August it moved back and forth while still declining. In November 2020, the USDX fell like a rock (there was one exception), and in December it moved back and forth while still declining.

Ever since the final days of March, we’ve seen the same thing all over again. The USD Index fell like a rock in April, and in May we’ve seen back-and-forth movement with lower lows and lower highs.

What we see right now is the third of the distinctive lows that previously marked the end of the declines.

And what did gold do when the USD Index rallied then?

In August, gold topped without waiting for USD’s final bottom – which is natural, given how extremely overbought it was in the short term.

In early January, gold topped (which was much more similar to the current situation given the preceding price action) when the USDX formed its third, final distinctive bottom.

I received a few questions recently asking what would need to happen for me to change my mind on the precious metals sector’s outlook. There are multiple reasons, and it’s impossible to list all of them. However, one of the reasons that would make me strongly consider that the outlook has indeed changed (at least for the short term) would be a confirmed breakdown in the USD Index below the 2021 lows to which gold would actually react.

As further evidence, the Euro Index might be in the midst of forming a bearish H&S pattern. If you analyze the right side of the chart below, you can see that the symmetrical pattern has the current rally mirroring the summer of 2020. And while we’re still in the early innings of forming the right shoulder, three peaks were recorded during the second half of 2020 before the Euro Index eventually rolled over. Likewise, with a symmetrical setup that seems to already be in motion, the Euro Index may be heading down a similar path of historical ruin. In the second half of 2020, the decline was not that big, but it’s no wonder that this was the case as that was only the left shoulder of the pattern. Completion of the right shoulder, however, would imply another move lower, at least equal to the size of the head – to about the June 2020 lows or lower.

Gold and the Euro

Furthermore, last week’s decline actually ushered the Euro Index back below the dashed resistance line of its monthly channel. And with its recent triple top mirroring the price action we witnessed in mid-to-late 2020 – before the Euro Index plunged – it won’t take long for confidence to turn into fear.

Please see below:

More importantly, though, the completion of the masterpiece could have a profound impact on gold, silver and mining stocks. To explain, gold continues to underperform the euro. If you analyze the bottom half of the chart above, you can see that material upswings in the Euro Index have resulted in diminishing marginal returns for the yellow metal. Thus, the relative weakness is an ominous sign, and if the Euro Index reverses, it could weigh heavily on the precious metals over the medium term.

If that wasn’t enough, with the USD Index hopping in the time machine and setting the dial to 2016, a bullish pattern is slowly emerging. To explain, I wrote on May 11:

While the self-similarity to 2018 in the USD Index is not as clear as it used to be (it did guide the USDX for many weeks, though), there is also another self-similar pattern that seems more applicable now. One of my subscribers noticed that and decided to share it with us (thanks, Maciej!).

Here’s the quote, the chart, and my reply:

“Thank you very much for your comprehensive daily Gold Trading Reports that I am gladly admitting I enjoy a lot. While I was analyzing recent USD performance, (DX) I have spotted one pattern that I would like to validate with you if you see any relevance of it. I have noticed the DX Index performing exactly in the same manner in a time frame between Jan. 1, 2021 and now as the one that started in May 2016 and continued towards Aug. 16. The interesting part is not only that the patterns are almost identical, but also their temporary peeks and bottoms are spotting in the same points. Additionally, 50 daily MA line is almost copied in. Also, 200 MA location versus 50 MA is almost identical too. If the patterns continue to copy themselves in the way they did during the last 4 months, we can expect USD to go sideways in May (and dropping to the area of 90,500 within the next 3 days) and then start growing in June… which in general would be in line with your analysis too.

Please note the below indices comparison (the lower represents the period between May-Dec 2016 and higher Jan – May 2021). I am very much interested in your opinion.

Thank you in advance.”

And here’s what I wrote in reply:

“Thanks, I think that’s an excellent observation! I read it only today (Monday), so I see that the bearish note for the immediate term was already realized more or less in tune with the self-similar pattern. The USDX moved a bit lower, but it doesn’t change that much. The key detail here would be that the USDX is unlikely to decline much lower, and instead, it’s likely to start a massive rally in the next several months - that would be in perfect tune with my other charts/points.

I wouldn’t bet on the patterns being identical in the very near term, though, just like the late June 2016 and early March 2021 weren’t that similar.

As soon as the USD Index rallies back above the rising support line, the analogy to 2016 will be quite clear once again –the implications will be even more bullish for the USDX and bearish for the precious metals market for the next several months.”

Please note that back in 2016, there were several re-tests of the rising support line and tiny breakdowns below it before the USD Index rallied. Consequently, the current short-term move lower is not really concerning, and forecasting gold at much higher levels because of it might be misleading. I wouldn’t bet on the silver bullish forecast either. The white metal might outperform at the very end of the rally, but it has already done so recently on a very short-term basis, so we don’t have to see this signal. And given the current situation in the general stock market – which might have already topped – silver and mining stocks might not be able to show strength relative to gold at all.

On top of that, the USD Index’s long-term breakout remains intact. And when analyzing from a bird’s-eye view, the greenback’s recent weakness is largely inconsequential.

Please see below:

Moreover, please note that the correlation between the USD Index and gold is now strongly negative (-0.90 over the last 30 days) and it’s been the case for several weeks now. The same thing happened in early January 2021 and in late July – August 2020; these were major tops in gold.

The bottom line?

After regaining its composure, ~94.5 is likely the USD Index’s first stop. In the months to follow, the USDX will likely exceed 100 at some point over the medium or long term.

Keep in mind though: we’re not bullish on the greenback because of the U.S.’ absolute outperformance. It’s because the region is doing (and likely to do) better than the Eurozone and Japan, and it’s this relative outperformance that matters, not the strength of just one single country or monetary area. After all, the USD Index is a weighted average of currency exchange rates and the latter move on a relative basis.

In conclusion, ghouls, goblins and ghosts are popping up everywhere, and while the USD Index has been under investors’ negative spell, the curse may have just been broken. Moreover, with plenty of skeletons in the financial markets’ closet and liquidity slowly being drained from the system, the narrative of excessive money printing has become an old wives’ tale. More importantly, though, with the greenback finding technical support at roughly the same time, we could be witnessing a paradigm shift in U.S. dollar sentiment. The bottom line? With gold, silver and mining stocks benefiting from the USD Index’s recent struggles, a coven is gathering, and it will likely torch the precious metals over the medium term.

Thank you for reading our free analysis today. Please note that the above is just a small fraction of the full analyses that our subscribers enjoy on a regular basis. They include multiple premium details such as the interim targets for gold and mining stocks that could be reached in the next few weeks. We invite you to subscribe now and read today’s issue right away.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Founder, Editor-in-chief

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