Gold & Silver Trading Alert: The Pre-FOMC Tensions

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

Not much happened during yesterday’s session (gold moved a bit lower, while silver, mining stocks, and the USD Index were more or less flat) and what we wrote previously remains up-to-date, so today’s alert is once again going to be short.

However, we would like to discuss the question that we were just asked and it is if we are going to take profits and close the current short position before the September 20 – 21 FOMC meeting.

Generally, it depends. The market is quite confident that there will be no interest rate hike, so if nothing happens with interest rates, there could be no significant reaction in gold either. It is, however, possible, that due to technical developments we will see a rally after the announcement, but it is also possible that we will see a decline. It all depends on what signals we get before the meeting, as the FOMC’s existence suggests higher volatility on a daily basis, but not much more. Well, if the rates are increased, the implications for gold would be very bearish in the short term, but we don’t expect the rates to be raised. Gold’s reaction to “no changes” news is likely to be rather insignificant and / or temporary.

For instance, if we see a breakdown on strong volume before the meeting, we will most likely not close the position just because of the latter. If, however, it becomes more likely that we’ll see a bounce based on technical grounds and we are right before the meeting, we’ll likely close the position.

All in all, since nothing really changed, we can summarize the current outlook just like we summarized it yesterday:

Summing up, the outlook for the precious metals market remains bearish, but the move lower will likely not take the shape of a straight line – there will be corrections along the way, but this is actually good news as it provides for additional opportunities – for instance, if it hadn’t been for the move up this month and the signals that had preceded it, we would probably not have taken profits off the table on September 1 and re-enter the short positions at higher prices on September 8, thus further increasing gains. We will be monitoring the market for similar opportunities and report to you accordingly.

On a side note, we will also monitor the market for opportunities to open long positions – the ones that we’ll open depends on what kind of opportunity we’ll see.

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

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Short positions (100% of the full position) in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following entry prices, stop-loss orders and initial target price levels:

Gold: initial target price: $1,006; stop-loss: $1,393, initial target price for the DGLD ETN: $74.37; stop-loss for the DGLD ETN $36.89
Silver: initial target price: $13.12; stop-loss: $21.63, initial target price for the DSLV ETN: $39.78; stop-loss for the DSLV ETN $14.34
Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): initial target price: $9.34; stop-loss: $33.17, initial target price for the DUST ETF: $297; stop-loss for the DUST ETF $18.80

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: $54.29
JDST ETF: initial target price: $245; stop-loss: $15.80

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

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

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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