Technical analysis in a manipulated market is tough, if not impossible. So, please take the following with a grain of salt.

Before we can get excited about any chart formations, we need to see a trend change. That is, gold needs to get up above its 200 day moving average. Presently, the 200 dma is around $1132 -- thankfully not too far off from where gold is now.

As to chart formations, cup-and-handle formations are more reliable when they are continuations of a bullish trend. That is, they are periods of consolidations following moves upward out of a previous breakout. Accordingly, I would be skeptical in calling the current rounded bottom in gold's price chart a cup-and-handle formation, given that gold is in bearish (counter) trend, not a bullish trend.

Having said that, gold's price chart is not all doom and gloom. It is possible that gold has been carving out a double bottom since June of last year. Whether this double-bottom is an Adam-and-Eve double bottom or an Eve-and-Eve double bottom, I don't know.

If the right side of the right bottom is formed, then it is possible to speculate an upside target of around $100 above the top of the two bottom formations -- say, around $1260-1270. If gold hits that price range, it would be around or just above the cup and handle formed between December 2009 and September 2010. Everyone here knows what happened to the price of gold between September 2010 and September 2011

Looking forward to feedback and still keeping the faith,

Old School