Gold & Silver Trading Alert: The January Effect

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Briefly: In our opinion, full (150% of the regular full position) speculative short positions in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective.

Practically nothing happened in the precious metals market yesterday and the outlook didn’t change at all. Consequently, we have little to comment on today and we will discuss something else instead.

January is just around the corner and this month is traditionally known to be strong for the precious metals sector. Will it trigger a major upswing, just like it did last year?

Generally, we already replied to the above question before it was asked and we did it in on Tuesday:

How high could gold go after reaching the 2015 bottom – it’s a tough call right now, but the $1,100 - $1,150 area seems to be a quite likely target, with the lower border thereof being more likely. Why? Because it will be easy to view the next local bottom as a repeat of the 2015 bottom (prepare for the “double bottom is in” headlines) and back then gold initially moved a little above $1,100. However, we expect the similarity to both 2013 and 2015 bottom to end at that time – and only the similarity to the 2013 decline to continue, as it doesn’t seem that gold is hated enough to form a major bottom after moving only to its previous low.

Will the fact that January is coming in several days make people hate gold enough for the final bottom to form? No. We could see a short-term upswing, but nothing more than that appears likely, especially considering the similarity to the 2013 decline. Besides, seasonality is particularly useful given the absence of a major trend and it’s quite clear that we have one in the precious metals sector right now.

Summing up, it seems that the January effect will not be enough to trigger a major rally, but a short-term one is quite likely to be seen once gold moves to its 2015 bottom. Depending on the bullish confirmations that we may (!) see at that time, we may decide to take profits on the current short positions or even to very temporarily open a long position, but it’s too early to do any of the above at this time. Either way, it seems that the final bottom in the precious metals market will form below the 2015 low and we strongly suggest preparing for it.

As always, we will keep you – our subscribers – updated.

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Short positions (150% of the full position) in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following stop-loss orders and initial target price levels / profit-take orders:

Gold: exit-profit-take level: $1,063; stop-loss: $1,183; initial target price for the DGLD ETN: $81.88; stop-loss for the DGLD ETN $58.77
Silver: initial target price: $13.12; stop-loss: $17.53; initial target price for the DSLV ETN: $46.18; stop-loss for the DSLV ETN $24.86
Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): initial target price: $9.34; stop-loss: $22.62; initial target price for the DUST ETF: $143.56; stop-loss for the DUST ETF $41.88

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 initial target prices:

GDXJ ETF: initial target price: $14.13; stop-loss: $38.12
JDST ETF: initial target price: $104.26; stop-loss: $28.88

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

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 always, we'll keep you - our subscribers - updated should our views on the market change. We will continue to send out Gold & Silver Trading Alerts on each trading day and we will send additional Alerts whenever appropriate.

The trading position presented above is the netted version of positions based on subjective signals (opinion) from your Editor, and the Tools and Indicators.

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.

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