Briefly: in our opinion, small (50% of the regular size of the position) speculative long positions in gold, silver, and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward point of view at the moment of publishing this Alert.

The USD Index rallied on Friday, and gold responded with an intraday decline - that's normal. What's not necessarily normal is the size of the daily change in gold compared to the size of USD's rally.

USD Index Bounces Higher

Namely, gold futures ended Friday's session exactly where they had closed on Thursday. There was no daily change in gold, even though it - theoretically - should have declined given USD's upswing. What does it mean? Gold's resilience means that gold has probably not finished its short-term upswing yet.

The general rule for any market is that if it doesn't move in the way it "should" move given what's going on in the world, it means that - for whatever reason - it's not the direction in which the market is going to move next. This trading technique doesn't specify what is the reason for a given market's strength. The point is to detect and acknowledge this strength, and then to combine this information with other trading signals.

One of the biggest benefits of this approach is its widespread application. Knowing what is likely to move a given market and what kind of reaction would be normal, means that it can be applied - regardless of what the market is. It also applies to various terms, if one takes into consideration the likely time in which the effect of a given development "should" be in place. For instance, in case of long-term investment, one should pay attention to how the market reacts to the factors that matter in this time horizon, for instance demographics and shifts in supply & demand picture. In case of day trading, it's a matter of checking if a given individual piece of news (or price action from a key influencing market) causes a price move that seems natural. The bigger the divergence from what would be viewed as normal, the stronger the bullish or bearish signal becomes.

Moving back to the USD-gold picture, we previously wrote that the USD Index is quite likely to consolidate before rallying strongly and it seems that this consolidation is still taking place. The USDX didn't break to new November highs and Friday's rally is in tune with how the U.S. currency performed in case of previous consolidations that we marked in green.

Back and forth movement was common, and sometimes it took form of a day-to-day swings, and sometimes (such as in July and October), it meant two bottoms. There are no indications that would make Friday's upswing look any different than what we saw in October and July and thus it seems that we could easily see yet another downswing (perhaps to the recent lows) before the rally really picks up.

And what would gold be likely to do in such an environment? It would likely rally more visibly than it rallied recently - similarly to how it performed in the final parts of previous USDX consolidations. Despite today's few-dollar pre-market downswing, it seems that the top is not yet in and that gold will move higher shortly.

The rally in gold is likely to be accompanied by outperformance of silver and underperformance of mining stocks, as that's exactly how short-term rallies tend to end. Silver's outperformance is likely to be more prominent than miners' underperformance, as the miners' link to gold at tops is not that straightforward.

At times, miners underperform before the top (for days), but then show strength one more time, exactly at the top. It is the pre-top underperformance that really counts, not the final daily upswing.

The Short-Term in PMs

Looking at the gold, silver, and miners trio, it's clear that what we see right now is similar to how the sector performed in mid-October, before the final part of the corrective upswing materialized. The two-day decline in gold miners might appear discouraging, but it's well within what was normal during the previous short-term rallies.

The first of the four triangle-vertex-based turning points is just around the corner, meaning that the high-reversal-chance period is starting. Given what we see in the USD Index and the way gold reacted to it, it seems that we will see yet another upswing and a top this or next week.

Naturally, the key bearish factors for the medium term remain intact - the outlook is bullish only for the short term.

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 stocks appear to be repeating their performance from 20 years ago, which means that a bottom in the entire precious metals sector is quite likely to form at much lower prices, in about a year

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.

Summary

Summing up, the outlook for the precious metals sector remains very bearish for the following months (also because of the record open interest in gold), but it seems that we will first see a short-term upswing before the decline continues. Based on what we saw in the last few days, the bullish outlook remains justified. It seems that the profits on our long positions will become bigger before we close it. We expect to close the long position this or next week. Then, we plan to open a short position shortly thereafter.

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

To summarize:

Trading capital (supplementary part of the portfolio; our opinion): Small speculative long position (50% of the full position) in gold, silver, and mining stocks is justified from the risk/reward perspective with the following stop-loss orders and binding exit profit-take price levels:

• Gold: profit-take exit price: $1,489.80; stop-loss: $1,437; initial target price for the UGLD ETN: $135.88; stop-loss for the UGLD ETN: $122.10
• Silver: profit-take exit price: $17.47; stop-loss: $16.27; initial target price for the USLV ETN: $89.33; stop-loss for the USLV ETN: $72.44
• Mining stocks (price levels for the GDX ETF): profit-take exit price: $27.88; stop-loss: $25.47; initial target price for the NUGT ETF: $30.27; stop-loss for the NUGT ETF $23.08

In case one wants to bet on junior mining stocks' prices, here are the stop-loss details and target prices:

• GDXJ ETF: profit-take exit price: $39.27; stop-loss: $35.38
• JNUG ETF: profit-take exit price: $67.97; stop-loss: $49.83

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