By David Nichols

Thursday was just about perfect as a lead-in day to a big breakout, with gold popping up to $1,128 and hovering there for most of the day.

There is a lot to like about the move up over the past 2 trading days, but the best thing is the daily chart remaining firmly in neutral as gold has gained more than $25. This confirms that this move up to $1,128 is just setting up the next trend, as no actual trending energy has been used to get gold back to this point.

Of course this also means there is a chance that gold is hitting equilibrium ahead of a move down, and not up. Anything is possible in markets, but with the bigger growth pattern, and the 4-month bullish sideways consolidation without a daily trend, I just don’t see a lengthy decline as a likely possibility.

Instead this is an ideal set-up for a very large hyper-growth phase in gold, lasting many months and covering hundreds of points.

It’s also interesting how the 150-minute chart is not really trending heavily, despite the rather sizeable recovery over the last 2 trading days.

This is due to the fact that the most of the gains have come from a few sudden jumps, followed by extended sideways movement. This can preserve the energy in a pattern.

So gold is heading into next week in very good shape. Even though there has been a nice surge of upside energy over the past 2 days, I still think a much more dramatic move is coming early next week. This should finally take gold up through $1,145 and get the big growth pattern back on track for huge gains over the rest of 2010.