Briefly: in our opinion, full (250% of the regular size of the position) speculative short position in gold, silver, and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward point of view at the moment of publishing this Alert.

Gold and silver declined this week and the latter is currently testing this month's lows. We warned you that silver's short-term outperformance is not likely to last long and it didn't. The white metal is currently leading the way lower, and the previous months' strength was actually one huge show of outperformance. Silver tends to outperform gold strongly on a very short-term basis when it indicates short-term tops. Silver outperformed on a medium-term basis, which has likely indicated a medium-term top. The white metal is already more than $2 below its September high and its outperformance is already over. And what about the recent slide in the gold to silver ratio? It was just a pullback. No market can move up or down in a straight line and periodic corrections have to happen every now and then. That's what happened in the gold to silver ratio. Let's dig into details.

Gold to Silver Ratio Chart Outlook

Over 2 years ago, when the gold to silver ratio was trading at about 78, and practically everyone was writing that the ratio moved to a resistance and was about to decline strongly, we wrote an article in which we argued that the 80 level and the most recent highs are not the ultimate long-term resistance and that the real resistance is the 100 level. In the following months, the ratio continued to climb and even soared above 90. It declined sharply after that, which begs the question whether this decline actually changes anything.

Absolutely not, tt doesn't change anything. As we already wrote, no market can move up or down in a straight line and what we saw recently, was just a corrective downswing. It might have appeared to be an important short-term development, but it's not correct to evaluate it in this way. It was a long-term breakout (above the previous highs at about 80) that we saw recently, so one should look at the decline from this point of view. And what does the above very long-term picture tell? That the recent decline is barely visible. The ratio is trading at about 85 at the moment of writing these words, which means that the breakout above the previous highs was just successfully verified.

The implications of the current situation in the gold to silver ratio are bullish for the ratio. And they are bearish for the entire precious metals sector as gold, silver, and mining stocks tend to move - on average, and in the long run - in the opposite way to the ratio's direction.

Once the gold to silver ratio hits 100, it might be a good idea to back up the truck with gold, silver and quality mining stocks, but we're far from this moment at this time.

Conversely, based on what we see today, it seems that the decline in the precious metals sector has resumed after the final verifications of the breakdowns below the rising support lines.

In other words, our yesterday's comments on the short-term gold, silver, mining stocks' and USD charts remain completely up-to-date.

The Unchanged Short-Term Picture

Both gold and silver verified the breakdowns below their rising support lines and declined shortly thereafter, just as they were supposed to.

Silver did move a bit above the line, which some traders may have viewed as breakdown's invalidation, but we warned you that silver's signals shouldn't be taken at face value if they are not confirmed by either gold or mining stocks. This was not the case, so the bearish outlook didn't change. And yesterday's slide confirms it. The outlook remains bearish and more declines are likely to follow.

Miners moved only about halfway up to the previously broken support line. The line is currently above the August high and at about 250. The HUI Index is not even close to this level. Conversely, it's not above the September high. It's not above the August high. It's not even above the early-August high. Consequently, nothing really changed based on yesterday's upswing.

Now, why do we mention gold and gold miners' performance with the emphasis on their breakdowns' status? Because silver tends to provide false indications quite often and thus it's important to check with the rest of the precious metals market to see whether silver is confirming anything. The invalidation of the breakdown certainly lacks this confirmation.

The most useful sign from the silver market that we get on a short-term basis is its outperformance of gold. That's what usually takes place at or very close to the local top. And that's exactly what we saw yesterday. Consequently, should yesterday's upswing in silver be really viewed as bullish? No.

It's also important to keep the comments on the possible head-and-shoulders pattern in mind:

Please note that the current moves in gold and the HUI Index are relatively similar to what happened in the first half of August. Gold is moving back and forth at similar levels and so is the HUI Index. The miners' very short-term moves are bigger but the volume is lower this time, though. While the implications are not yet clear, the odds are that the current back and forth movement (a slight rally) is actually the right shoulder of the bearish head and shoulders formation. The volume should be relatively small during the right shoulder, and this has been the case recently. The implications are not clear yet, because the formation is not yet completed. Once gold confirms its breakdown below $1,490 and the HUI confirms its breakdown below (approximately) 200, the next big slide will follow. Given what is happening in the USD Index, the start of this slide is likely just around the corner.

What About the USD Index?

It just rallied strongly, in perfect tune with what we wrote about its triangle-vertex-based reversal (and if you haven't read Tuesday's analysis yet, we strongly encourage you to do so today for the long-term details):

It was yet another higher low. The ultimate low this year formed in early January. Then, we saw a higher low in late January. Then a higher low in March, then a higher low in June, then a higher low in mid-July, then two higher lows in August and finally the higher low that we saw this week. Higher lows mean uptrend. Trendlines are useful to detect the turnarounds and Fibonacci retracements tell us if the move in the opposite direction is significant enough to be viewed as a trend change. However, the underlying rule is simple. If the price is on average moving up, then the market is an uptrend. Looking at the relative placement of lows and highs tells us the same thing. By the way, the highs in the USD Index have also been increasing this year.

While the rising black support line was already broken, it didn't cause the USDX to decline below the previous local low. It didn't decline below the red line that's based on the August lows either. And that's despite Trump calling for zero percent rate policy or even negative interest rate policy.

In the previous Alerts we wrote that the market will be viewing the U.S. President's tweets and comments as less and less important, given how often Trump changes his mind (remember how quickly North Korean "fire and fury" threats turned into a handshake?). The higher USDX lows confirm that. It didn't matter that Trump demanded radically lower interest rates. The currency traders didn't care much.

What did all the above result in? We have the USD Index above 98, close to the yearly highs. It mostly doesn't react to bearish news and it comes back stronger after each of such news is presented.

The outlook for the USD Index remains bullish.

There's one more detail about the USD Index chart that we would like to discuss. It's the vertex of the triangle that's based on the rising green resistance line and the rising black resistance line. (...) The vertexes of triangles tend to mark reversal dates, which means that the USD Index is likely to reverse its course on Monday or around it (perhaps even today).

Now, if the general trend is up, then the above is likely to mean a bottom in the USDX and then a rally. However, in order for the bottom to form, the price would have to come down. This means that the U.S. dollar could temporarily decline here, even despite all the bullish indications that we have right now.

This in turn means that gold, silver, and mining stocks could still move a bit higher before plunging. The emphasis goes on "could" and "a bit". In the last few weeks, gold and silver managed to decline on their own - so even if the USD declines, it's not a sure thing that the PMs will rally. And even if they do, they are unlikely to rally far. Still, it seems useful to know that such a possibility exists - so that a temporary upswing doesn't make one question all the bearish factors that remain in place. Speaking of the bearish factors, here they are. The links below include the analyses with discussions of these main points.

The USD Index moved lower on Friday and then reversed before the end of the session. Given the proximity of the triangle vertex reversal, it could be the case that this was the final bottom before the next upswing. Alternatively, it could be the case that the USDX bottoms today or tomorrow. Either way, the start of the next rally is most likely very close.

The USD Index seems to have bottomed right after the triangle-vertex-based turnaround. The implications are bullish for the USDX and bearish for the precious metals market.

Key Factors to Keep in Mind

Critical factors:

• The USD Index broke above the very long-term resistance line and verified the breakout above it. Its huge upswing is already underway.
• The USD's long-term upswing is an extremely important and bearish factor for gold. There were only two similar cases in the past few decades, when USD Index was starting profound, long-term bull markets, and they were both accompanied by huge declines in gold and the rest of the precious metals market
• Out of these two similar cases, only one is very similar - the case when gold topped in February 1996. The similarity extends beyond gold's about a yearly delay in reaction to the USD's rally. Also the shape of gold price moves prior to the 1996 high and what we saw in the last couple of years is very similar, which confirm the analysis of the gold-USD link and the above-mentioned implications of USD Index's long-term breakout.
• The similarity between now and 1996 extends to silver and mining stocks - in other words, it goes beyond USD, gold-USD link, and gold itself. The white metal and its miners appear to be in a similar position as well, and the implications are particularly bearish for the miners. After their 1996 top, they erased more than 2/3rds of their prices.
• Many investors got excited by the gold-is-soaring theme in the last few months, but looking beyond the short-term moves, reveals that most of the precious metals sector didn't show substantial strength that would be really visible from the long-term perspective. Gold doesn't appear to be starting a new bull market here, but rather to be an exception from the rule.
• Gold's True Seasonality around the US Labor Day points to a big decline shortly.

Very important, but not as critical factors:

• Long-term technical signs for silver, i.a. the analogy in terms of price to what we saw in 2008, shows that silver could slide even below $10.
• Silver's very long-term cycles point to a major reversal taking place right now and since the most recent move was up, the implications are bearish (this is also silver's technical sign, but it's so important that it deserves its own point)
• Long-term technical signs for gold stocks point to this not being a new gold bull market beginning. Among others, it's their long-term underperformance relative to gold that hint this is rather a corrective upswing within a bear market that is not over yet.
• Record-breaking weekly volume in gold is a strong sign pointing to lower gold prices

Important factors:

• Extreme volume reading in the SIL ETF (proxy for silver stocks) is an effective indication that lower values of silver miners are to be expected
• Silver's short-term outperformance of gold, and gold stocks' short-term underperformance of gold both confirm that the precious metals sector is topping here
• Gold topped almost right at its cyclical turning point, which makes the trend reversal more likely
• Copper broke below its head-and-shoulders pattern and confirmed the breakdown. The last time we saw something similar was in April 2013, when the entire precious metals sector was on the verge of plunging lower.

Moreover, please note that while there may be a recession threat, it doesn't mean that gold has to rally immediately. Both: recession and gold's multi-year rally could be many months away - comparing what happened to bond yields in the 90s confirms that.

Copper moved above the neck level of its head-and-shoulders pattern that's based on the intraday lows, but it didn't invalidate the analogous level based on the weekly closing prices, so we don't think it's justified to say that this bearish formation was invalidated at this time.

Summary

Summing up, the big decline in the precious metals sector appears to be finally underway, and the temporary USD-reversal-caused rally in gold and silver is likely over. Let's keep in mind that once the USDX takes off, it will likely serve as fuel to the fire-like decline in the PMs that's already underway. The similarity to mid-90s continues to support much lower gold prices in the following months. All in all, it seems that what we see right now is the beginning of the final stage of the prolonged decline in the precious metals sector that started in 2011. On a short-term basis, it seems that we might get some temporary strength once gold moves to about $1,330 - perhaps within the next several weeks.

As always, we'll keep you - our subscribers - informed.

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Full speculative short position (250% of the full position) in gold, silver, and mining stocks is justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following stop-loss orders and exit profit-take price levels:

• Gold: profit-take exit price: $1,332; stop-loss: $1,583; initial target price for the DGLD ETN: $39.87; stop-loss for the DGLD ETN: $25.17
• Silver: profit-take exit price: $14,62; stop-loss: $20,16; initial target price for the DSLV ETN: $32.96; stop-loss for the DSLV ETN: $11.67
• Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): profit-take exit price: $22.62; stop-loss: $32.37; initial target price for the DUST ETF: $17.28; stop-loss for the DUST ETF $5.48

In case one wants to bet on junior mining stocks' prices (we do not suggest doing so - we think senior mining stocks are more predictable in the case of short-term trades - if one wants to do it anyway, we provide the details), here are the stop-loss details and target prices:

• GDXJ ETF: profit-take exit price: $30.32; stop-loss: $45.42
• JDST ETF: profit-take exit price: $38.36 stop-loss: $11.26

Long-term capital (core part of the portfolio; our opinion): No positions (in other words: cash)

Insurance capital (core part of the portfolio; our opinion): Full position

Whether you already subscribed or not, we encourage you to find out how to make the most of our alerts and read our replies to the most common alert-and-gold-trading-related-questions.

Please note that the in the trading section we describe the situation for the day that the alert is posted. In other words, it we are writing about a speculative position, it means that it is up-to-date on the day it was posted. We are also featuring the initial target prices, so that you can decide whether keeping a position on a given day is something that is in tune with your approach (some moves are too small for medium-term traders and some might appear too big for day-traders).

Plus, you might want to read why our stop-loss orders are usually relatively far from the current price.

Please note that a full position doesn't mean using all of the capital for a given trade. You will find details on our thoughts on gold portfolio structuring in the Key Insights section on our website.

As a reminder - "initial target price" means exactly that - an "initial" one, it's not a price level at which we suggest closing positions. If this becomes the case (like it did in the previous trade) we will refer to these levels as levels of exit orders (exactly as we've done previously). Stop-loss levels, however, are naturally not "initial", but something that, in our opinion, might be entered as an order.

Since it is impossible to synchronize target prices and stop-loss levels for all the ETFs and ETNs with the main markets that we provide these levels for (gold, silver and mining stocks - the GDX ETF), the stop-loss levels and target prices for other ETNs and ETF (among other: UGLD, DGLD, USLV, DSLV, NUGT, DUST, JNUG, JDST) are provided as supplementary, and not as "final". This means that if a stop-loss or a target level is reached for any of the "additional instruments" (DGLD for instance), but not for the "main instrument" (gold in this case), we will view positions in both gold and DGLD as still open and the stop-loss for DGLD would have to be moved lower. On the other hand, if gold moves to a stop-loss level but DGLD doesn't, then we will view both positions (in gold and DGLD) as closed. In other words, since it's not possible to be 100% certain that each related instrument moves to a given level when the underlying instrument does, we can't provide levels that would be binding. The levels that we do provide are our best estimate of the levels that will correspond to the levels in the underlying assets, but it will be the underlying assets that one will need to focus on regarding the signs pointing to closing a given position or keeping it open. We might adjust the levels in the "additional instruments" without adjusting the levels in the "main instruments", which will simply mean that we have improved our estimation of these levels, not that we changed our outlook on the markets. We are already working on a tool that would update these levels on a daily basis for the most popular ETFs, ETNs and individual mining stocks.

Our preferred ways to invest in and to trade gold along with the reasoning can be found in the how to buy gold section. Additionally, our preferred ETFs and ETNs can be found in our Gold & Silver ETF Ranking.

As a reminder, Gold & Silver Trading Alerts are posted before or on each trading day (we usually post them before the opening bell, but we don't promise doing that each day). If there's anything urgent, we will send you an additional small alert before posting the main one.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Przemyslaw Radomski, CFA
Editor-in-chief, Gold & Silver Fund Manager