Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Gold went on to make a new all time high today steadily gathering strength as the trading session wore on. The catalyst was soaring crude oil prices which generated both a safe haven and an inflation bid in the metal.

There are two things to note about this:

First - the metal did this in the face of a safe haven bid going into the Dollar. That generally translates into gold rising in terms of most of the other major currencies. For example - gold priced in terms of the Japanese Yen is within striking distance of its all time high. Euro-priced gold is 23 euros shy of its all time price in that currency. That is a good sign from a trading standpoint because it indicates that the market is not moving solely on Dollar related issues but is strong based on its own merits.

Second - While the speculative money has been returning to the gold market since it hit bottom near $1310 back in January, they are still not near their peak exposure based on recent measurements. Translation - although the market has come a long way the long side, while definitely getting busy (which is what we want to see by the way), is still not all that crowded.

With the market trading well above all of the major moving averages, the speculative long crowd is in the driver's seat for the time being. It would take a plunge down below $1400 now to run a large number of them out. The market is in a posture which should engender buying on dips rather than one of selling rallies based on its current technicals.

We should look for support to surface initially near $1410 and if that failed to attract enough buyers, then $1400 comes into play. That would need to hold to prevent a bit deeper pullback in price, that might possibly take it down towards $1380.

Upside is now in uncharted territory once again so are making projections where resistance might be expected to surface. There looks to be some resistance near $1445 followed by $1450. If the market pushes through these levels in the next few days, quite frankly there does not appear to be all that much standing between it and a run towards $1500.