Included is a current one year chart of the XAU Index along with some observations:

Since early November the Index has been in a major consolidation phase. Two other consolidation phases were successfully resolved higher following the 250 low in gold since the early 2000's.

The current phase is one that has been really cooking with many ups and downs as opposed to the earlier ones. This resting period looks to me like a giant boiling kettle on the verge of blowing its lid much higher, possibly to the 250 to 270 area for a short term move.

In the past few days the MACD Divergence chart on the lower section has signalled some expected weakness with the faster moving average line crossing the slower one. It's not expected that developing weakness has much room to retreat on this signal.

The 100 and 200 day moving average lines are expected to offer support from 181 to 184. Farther down, a lower Bollinger Band at 177 will be in there defending prices as well.

In mid-September of 2007 the XAU made a major advance above the 150 level. This level had keep prices in check from advancing higher for many years. The 150 area is major major support that has not been really tested following the the initial breakout. The 160 area has halted all declining spells during most of this major consolidation phase. During June of this year the 170 area has replaced the 160 level as support.

The current, expected to be anemic, reaction, hopefully, will be just another opportunity to acquire more or for the first time, some ECU shares before the big Index blasts off carrying ECU with it.

Go ECU!!

I am unable to transfer the chart from bigcharts.com and would appreciate it if anyone could give me some help in this matter.