By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

On February 24, Reuters reported that the Reserve Bank of India was “set to be a buyer” of the 191.3 tonnes (6.74 million ounces) of gold the IMF is selling. Although the bank wouldn’t comment directly on the possibility, they did say, “We are closely looking at the gold market… gold is a safe bet.”

The article then quoted an unidentified official from the China Gold Association as saying, “It is not feasible for China to buy the IMF bullion, as any purchase or even intent to do so would trigger market speculation and volatility.”

But the next day, Finmarket news agency in Russia reported that China “confirmed its intention” to buy the IMF gold. “Chinese officials have confirmed previous announcements from IMF experts and said that the purchasing of 191 tons of gold would not exert negative influence on the world market.”

While they’ve been silent since, both India and China have publicly hinted they want this latest batch of yellow bars from the IMF. There’s no way to know if a competitive bid would spring up between these two countries, but…can you imagine the ramifications if one did?

When India bought 200 tonnes of IMF gold last November 3, it set off a buying spree that saw gold rise 14.2% in 4 weeks. What if this time around, a couple central banks both want the gold for sale? What if China says to India, “Not so fast, guys. We’d like to bid on that, too…” and word of that clash leaked out?

Pure speculation, of course, but competing for gold purchases isn’t a far-fetched idea. This sale is not pre-arranged; it’s an open market sale. Also, there’s only so much to go around. These two countries have only a tiny amount of their reserves in gold. Throw in the fact that central banks worldwide are already net buyers.

A pretty delicious thought, wouldn’t you say?

The gold price dropped a tad on the IMF announcement, but is up 1.1% since then. It’s pretty hard to make a case that IMF sales will hurt the gold price. As I said a few weeks ago in my dirty jokes column, IMF sales tend to mark bottoms in the price and not tops. The World Gold Council reported that floor traders now consider $1,054 as a floor in the market. Why? That was the average price India paid for the 200-tonnes they bought from the IMF last fall.

Meanwhile, what is our government doing?

You’ll recall that that big spike in the U.S. monetary base in late 2008 was never before seen in history. The Federal Reserve basically doubled it overnight. Our economist Terry Coxon described it as “beyond unprecedented.”

So, they stopped that insane activity, right? Since December 2008, the monetary base has swelled from 1.69 trillion to 2.18 trillion, a 29% increase and another new record.

Printing paper money vs. buying physical gold. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll follow China and India’s lead here, even if I have to compete for the price I pay for my gold.

Is $1054 really the bottom in the gold price? Check out our 4 clues in the current issue of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report here risk free.

Gold Scents

The rally out of the February intermediate and yearly cycle low has now traveled far enough and long enough that it is due to take a short breather. That breather would be in the form of a short term pullback into the midcycle low.

The initial move out of the July intermediate cycle low lasted 22 days before forming a short term top.

When the tech bubble burst in 2000, Greenspan tried to “fix” the problem by cutting rates and printing money. Fix the problem he did … well sort of! What Greenspan did was create two new bubbles in the credit and real estate markets to replace the tech bubble that had burst. Millions of jobs were created in these two industries. Much needed jobs to replace the ones lost as the tech boom came to an end.
I think we will all admit it was one heck of a party, but like all good parties there’s a price to pay. The Hangover!
The truth is the economic boom of the mid 2000’s was built on a lie. Instead of a foundation of productivity the last bull market was founded on an ocean of liquidity. That ocean of liquidity fostered risky investments and massive speculation. It was only a matter of time before the house of cards came crashing down. And crash it did. The world suffered through the second worst bear market in history almost taking down the global financial system in the process.
Apparently the powers that be have learned nothing from this near death experience because they are back at it again, printing, printing, printing in another vain effort to create prosperity with the printing press. I dare say the average 6th grader can understand that the act of putting ink on paper does not create wealth. It’s too bad our elected officials can’t understand this.
So here we are, we’ve survived the credit crisis and all appears to be well in the world. I’m here to say that all is not well. We now have a cancer growing under the surface of the economy many times bigger than the one Greenspan created. This cancer isn’t going to show up in real estate or credit markets, that bubble has already burst, never to be inflated again. No, this time I expect the cancer is going to flare up as inflation in the commodity markets.
Witness the strange resilience of oil at $80 despite a very strong dollar the past 3 months. Gold has been holding over $1100. Sugar is at multi-year highs. Copper is less than 15% from all-time highs.
The commodity markets are now poised to unleash a massive inflationary storm. I think there’s a very good chance that storm will strike this spring.

The dollar is now deep into a counter trend rally and in jeopardy of putting in an intermediate term top at any time. When it does the flood gates could break and we will have to deal with the unintended consequences of Bernanke’s actions.
Unfortunately, there are no painless cures for spiking inflation, especially in an ongoing recession. The cure is to let the market clean out the excesses. The cure is to raise rates and drain liquidity, to induce a recession. That course leads to 20%+ unemployment and a deflationary depression. Does anyone really believe our elected officials will choose the that course of action?
On the other hand, doing nothing leads to higher and higher inflation and running the presses faster and faster to stay ahead of rising prices, eventually culminating in a hyperinflationary event if government debt is allowed to spiral beyond the point of no return.
Unfortunately, I think it’s probably too late to stop the storm. Let’s face it, you don’t start turning the Titanic when it’s 100 yards from the iceberg. By then it’s too late and the ship is doomed.
The same principle applies with our economy. If the Fed waits until inflation starts to pop up it is too late. The damage is already done and there’s no going back. If the inflation Genie gets out of the bottle there’s no easy way to get him back in. I would argue that the commodity markets are already trying to tell us there’s trouble coming.
History has been crystal clear - every time oil spikes 100% or more within a year’s time, it has pushed the our economy into a recession. We already have a spike from $32 to over $80 and this is against a backdrop of high unemployment. The last thing we need in an economic environment that’s already under stress is surging energy prices again.
The question investors have to ask themselves is whether it’s more likely the powers that be will do the right thing, raise rates, drain liquidity and force the world into a deeper recession before inflation gets out of control or will they continue to kick the can down the road making the problem bigger and bigger?
Knowing human nature, my bet is that our elected officials will do whatever they have to do to avoid short term pain - even if it means compromising our future.
The storm is brewing. It’s time to batten down the hatches.
That means gold and silver!

John Townsend

The Smart Money Tracker

The Mess That Greenspan Made

It wasn’t much, but yesterday’s addition of 4.6 tonnes of gold to the “tonnes in the trust” at the world’s most popular gold ETF - SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE:GLD) - was the largest one-day addition since the middle of December.
As compared to last year at this time, there’s not much happening with the GLD inventory these days. Recall that during the first few months of 2009 they were adding gold bars like never before - a whopping 350 tonnes during just the first three months of the year.

The inventory is still about 20 tonnes below the all-time high reached last June, however, given what’s happened with the gold price in recent days, that could soon change.

From the 2001 beginning of the great secular bull market in gold, price has followed a predictable ABCD wave pattern.

This pattern has since played out five times. And on each occasion the C-wave has provided a spectacular performance. Gold’s C-waves of 2002, 2005 and 2007 yielded brisk gains of 18, 61 and 41%, respectively.

Fast forward to our current C-wave (April 2009 - present) and we find ourselves in either a C-wave that has surprisingly underperformed expectations (topping in early December with a modest 19% gain), or one that has yet to show its awesome might.

The question now is whether gold is still consolidating within a C-wave advance or whether a D-wave has managed to take hold.

On one hand the C-wave never really generated the kind of excessive speculation we normally see at C-wave tops. The silver gold ratio never spiked, miners never even got to normal valuations much less expensive, which is what would be expected as gold fever hits hard at C-wave tops.

The massive year and a half consolidation only spawned a meager 190 point new high? That doesn’t sound like a C-wave top to me. We had the most powerful A-wave, along with the weakest B-wave of the entire bull market so far and all it could gain was 190 points above the old highs? Hard to believe.

Trillions and trillions of dollar printed and thrown at the market and all we got was 190 points? Again hard to believe.

We even have a broken trend line.

Which ever way gold breaks out of the box should tell us were we stand. I will say that if this is a D-wave we should be getting close to the bottom. I would expect a test of the 65 week moving average and the $1000 mark will probably be about it before the next A-wave gets underway.

Gary Savage is currently retired and lives in Las Vegas. He is the author of the Smart Money Tracker, a financial blog with special emphasis on the gold secular bull market.

A few weeks ago on February 4th, I penned an article for Kitco forecasting the gold correction trends and the likely outcomes. My opinion was that gold was pulling back to work off excessive optimism from the early December 09 highs. This type of pullback was orderly and there was a gap at 102.50 on the GLD ETF that I believed would fill. The following day, that gap filled and gold hit a bottom at 1042 and has rallied much higher since. I opined that the rally in the US dollar was merely cosmetic against other world currencies, and that Gold was still the preferred asset to accumulate and would begin to move regardless of the dollar moves.

The recent technical move up in Gold only confirms that we are in the final five year window in my opinion where the investing public becomes “aware” that gold is real money.  In my August article last year, I discussed my thirteen year bull theory for the Gold market. The first five years from 2001-2006 was the “stealth bull” in Gold and Gold stocks.  The average Gold Fund ran up 30% a year for five years compounded.  By the time investors figure this out, they all pile in right near a five year peak.  The market then chops for three years sideways in an up and down fashion, getting nowhere.  Investors get bored, and then we move into the final five year stage where awareness takes hold and the bull cycle really takes off.

It is maybe the second inning of this five year stage, so the recent pullback in Gold to 1040 is normal, and the next advance is likely to be larger than the August to December advance. As this awareness grows, the bears get upset and try to explain how gold bulls are foolish. The investing public sometimes does not get enough credit for being correct, and in this case, those investing in Gold have been proven correct over and over again for the past nine years. They will be proven correct for the next few years as well as Gold continues to climb and  befuddle the gold bears of the world. You will know that Gold’s bull market has topped when all of the bears are completely silent and every Gold bull is running around screaming buy at the top of their lungs. Every time I have seen Gold pull back in the past nine years I have chuckled at how fast the erstwhile Gold bulls start getting nervous and the Gold bears pile on hard.  As long as I continue to see these behavioral patterns, and the technical and Elliott Wave patterns stay bullish, I will remain a Gold bull while trading around the important pivot highs and lows. As long as the pundits keep trying to talk Gold down, it will keep on rallying and fooling them until they are all believers. This is how the 13 year Tech Stock Bull unfolded from 1986-1999, and it’s how this Gold Bull is unfolding before your eyes.

It is interesting that Gold bottomed a few times and bounced off the 1070 areas, and then made what appears to be a final bottom around 1042 on February 5th and has rallied hard since then. In my opinion, Gold rallying past the 1040 and 1070 fibonacci pullback windows and now over 1,100 is indicative of a new wave of bullish advance taking us to $1325-$1350 at the next pivot top in Gold. It is as if Gold just cleared two important psychological hurdles at 1040 and 1070, and yet we see articles talking Gold down.

What many market pundits do not understand about Gold and it’s ascent since 2001 is that Gold is real money. Since most world currencies are nothing more than “burning matches” in a debt ridden world, Gold rises to the top of the asset class charts.  If you look at the Dow Jones average relative to Gold prices in the past ten years, you can see what real money is doing. The Dow is flat over ten years now while gold is up nearly 400% in the same period of time. Measure the Dow or the SP 500 index against Gold as your money indicator, and we are still in a major 10 year plus bear market. Folks, the Kondratiev winter is still here and the weather is about to get a lot colder.  In the winter cycle, all debt gets washed out of the system and this creates all kinds of carnage. Gold becomes favored “money” in this type of cycle.  Once this cycle completes, the “spring” comes and we start anew.  In the interim, look for Gold to continue ever higher and look for continuing trash talk by the pundits who don’t  get it.

I will be launching a new Market Trend Forecast service in early March of this year which will forecast the short, intermediate, and long term views of the markets, indices, ETF’s, and precious metals.  This will be in addition to my Active Trading Partners service. You can learn more at www.activetradingpartners.com , read our subscriber testimonials we have  compiled in 6 months since our July 2009 launch, and also review our past forecasts at www.activetradingpartner.com/articles.

David Banister

Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, Casey’s Gold & Resource Report

As a self-professed gold bug, why would I possibly want my favorite investment to fall in value? Have the long hours finally caught up with me?

Au contraire; my near-constant devotion to all things gold has only served to crystallize one of the things I really want out of this. Here’s a hint.

I had lunch with a reader at a recent conference, and while talking about one of my favorite subjects – gold stocks – I asked why he was invested so heavily in them. “Greed,” he said bluntly and with little hesitation. I appreciated the honesty.

Let’s be frank: I’m here to make money, and so are you. And that’s why I hope gold falls to $1,000 again.

Let’s say Bob has taken our advice and has been storing cash. I’ll use $1,000 as an example. If Bob buys Yamana Gold now, he’d get about 93 shares as I write (at $10.73 per share).

Now, let’s say gold drops to $1,000, about a 10% fall from here, and due to its leverage, AUY sells off by a 2-to-1 margin, meaning 20%. So with that same $1,000, Frank, who’s waited for the downturn, buys 116 shares at around $8.58. Thus, instead of owning 93 shares at $10.73, he owns 116 shares at $8.58.

When Frank sells, he doesn’t just make the difference between $8.58 and $10.73 (an extra 25%), he also makes 125% on the extra 23 shares he owns if Yamana doubles in a couple years, which I expect it to. So two years from now, Bob would have $2,000, but Frank would have $2,500 because he bought more shares and at a lower price. Frank makes 25% more than Bob on the same dollar investment simply by buying when gold and gold stocks fall in price.

Got $5,000 saved up? Multiply the profit by 5. And with larger amounts, you can see we’re talking serious money.

I don’t know if we’ll see $1,000 again or not, or if Yamana will fall that low, but I would point out that corrections in the gold price can range as high as 20% (2008 notwithstanding), so a further sell-off in price would not be out of the ordinary. A 20% correction from gold’s peak at $1,212.50 on December 2 would equal $970. That’s not necessarily a prediction, but it shows you that price is certainly possible.

Don’t like my wish? Remember, it’s called a bull market for a reason; it’s not a cow market or a puppy market. It’s going to try and buck you off. But a correction to $1,000 or even lower can give you the chance to buy more, cheaper. Don’t view sell-offs as a bad thing but rather as an opportunity.

Bring on $1,000!

Precious metals and energy are two of the hottest markets in 2010 and beyond. Learn all about today’s pressing investment topics: America’s hidden wells, a potential game changer for natural gas stocks… Predictions for 2010 — what the 18 most respected investment pros see for gold and the economy… Big Oil’s takeover targets and how to profit from them… and much, much more. Right now, get one year of Casey’s Gold & Resource Report PLUS one year of Casey’s Energy Opportunities for only $39 – a 50% savings. Offer ends January 31; click here for more.

Gold Stocks and the Dollar

The HUI (Gold Stock Index) has been on fire the past 10 months. Both gold and gold stocks have been leading the market higher. But the past month we have seen gold stocks under perform the SP500 and as of today are testing a key support level. Only time will tell if it bounces or breaks, so keep a close eye on your positions.

I use the UUP etf of the US Dollar to show the price action of today’s price move. The US Dollar is now above a key resistance level and has started to move higher. If the Dollar continues higher commodities across the board will have downward pressure. This could trigger a large sell off in the gold and gold stocks which I think are still over bought using a short term time frame.

Gold & Oil Futures Trends

The trend of gold and oil has been down the past few days. Gold broke down in the past 24 hours in overnight trading which triggered a wave of selling when the US market opened.

Gold and oil are currently trading between key support and resistance levels. I am looking for gold to drift back up to the $1130 level where I will look for a short setup as the current price action is not bearish on the intraday charts.

Oil is still bullish so I am not really looking to short it at this time. I will wait for another low risk buy signal.

Commodity Trading Conclusion:

I feel the broad market could be ready for a large correction ranging from 5-10%. I am calling it a correction as I want to stay positive thinking. But it could be the start of a major market top. Market tops tend to be a process and take several months to roll over. So let’s focus on protecting our money and wait for a pullback that will allow us to load up with some great positions in the coming weeks.

Patience is how money is made in the market. Waiting for the market to come to you is vital for success. Also having the patience to let winners run by scaling out (selling a portion) of a position when the price reaches a support or resistance level makes it easier to let them run. Each time you sell some of a position you are locking in a profit and lowering your risk for the balance of that trade.

If you would like to receive my Free Weekly Gold Reports please visit my website:

Chris Vermeulen
www.GoldAndOilGuy.com

Gold is in a strong bull market but the short term charts have provided over 13 short trades in the past 2 weeks for futures traders playing the bounces to resistance levels. The triangle on the 60 minute chart with declining volume is a continuation pattern of the short term trend which is down.

Because gold is trading near a support level on the daily chart, I am waiting patiently for a perfect setup to go short, or long depending on what happens in the coming hours. I predict lower prices with $102 area for the next support level.

Let’s continue to focus on these short term charts to take advantage of any low risk setups which come our way.

Get my Free Trend Trading Charts Free

Chris Vermeulen

www.TheTechnicalTraders.com

Donald W. Pendergast Jr. – Market Analyst – www.ETFTradingPartner.com
Wow – what a week it was in the world of Gold! After charging above $1,200 on the front-month futures contract earlier in the week, Gold finally finished the week on a very weak note, closing below $1,150, which was right above the low established a week earlier in the wake of the Dubai debt debacle. Clearly, Gold is beginning a trend reversal on a daily-based time frame, but the technical picture is less clear over the long-term. Let’s examine a weekly chart for GLD (one of the financial instruments that holds actual Gold) to get a better fix on what might be expected in this volatile market over the next month or so.

Graphic credit: Metastock v.11

Before going any further, I must admit to being a Gold Bug, having been afflicted with this wonderful malady for many years – including the time period prior to the recent bull run in Gold from 2001-present. Long-term, and given the abysmal long-term outlook for the US Dollar (and all fiat currencies for that matter), declining mine production (most of the high-quality, easier to mine deposits are used up already) and greater awareness among investors regarding the inclusion of Gold in their portfolios, I believe that Gold will easily make it to $2,500 to $3,000 at some point in the next five years, despite several massive sell-offs along the way to the eventual summit. However, in the here and now, we need to also rely on our charts, technical indicators and COT futures market data (Commitment of Traders report, published weekly by the CFTC) in order to minimize losses and maximize gains by waiting for more opportune times to add to long-term holdings of Gold and/or to capitalize on high probability, short-term moves (up and down) that will likely commence from solid support/resistance (S/R) levels in the weeks ahead.
OK, now on to what the weekly chart of GLD is telegraphing to astute traders and investors here:

1. $1,200 was a key Fibonacci extension/Keltner Band resistance area on both a weekly and monthly time frame; major turbulence was expected well in advance – thus the recent tumble came as no surprise to experienced technical traders.

2. Note this week’s wide-range weekly reversal candle, one that printed on extremely heavy volume (see circle at bottom of chart); this is a major reversal signal, especially for daily-based traders, coming in the wake of such a high profile resistance barrier($1,200).

3. Look now at the short-term and long-term money flows (lower portion of the chart); both of the Chaikin money flow indicators (CMF)(34) and (CMF)(144) are revealing pronounced negative divergences with the actual price trends of GLD, which means that the raw fuel (money flowing into GLD and Gold) needed to drive Gold higher is beginning to dry up – for the time being.

OK, so what? What’s a trader and/or investor to do now, given this information? Well, if you’re a long-term Gold Bug, simply hold your core investment positions for the long-haul; that $100+ trillion US national debt/unfunded liability problem ain’t paid off just yet (and likely will never be), so the future for Gold has never looked better, especially for those wishing to diversify out of the Greenback. Let this corrective move play out and trhen consider adding more at lower price levels – $1,050 might be one such a price zone, which happens to be the current 21-week exponential moving average (EMA) price for cash Gold. For those investing via shares in GLD, the area near $104 also coincides with its own 21-week EMA. More cautious investors might wait for a move lower toward the 50-week EMA, which comes in at about $96 for GLD and $975 for cash Gold. The 21- and 50-week EMA’s acts as strong S/R barriers in nearly every kind of market, and Gold is no exception, so you may wish to do further analysis to see if adding on at those particular price areas makes sense for your financial situation.

Traders can be a bit more aggressive; expect to see some sort of a reaction move higher once GLD/Gold hit their 21-week EMA (green box on the chart shows the likely time/price zone in which to anticipate a reversal higher)– this will most likely be a high-probability swing trade play, one that also needs to have a logical stop loss and profit target as well. Daily-based traders can do the same thing – plan on on the 21-day EMA offering some sort of a floor from which a short-term tradable bounce will commence. But be very nimble, with firm stop-loss and profit targets in place before you enter the trade.

Yes, this is a real correction in Gold, but no one really knows how far the price might fall. Even the strongest bull markets need to pause and correct before moving higher, and perhaps this is the case with the Gold market right now. We should know more as the weeks ahead play out; as always, use common sense, be patient and learn to focus on what the charts and long-term fundamental factors are saying, rather than giving in to fear, doubt or the opinions of those who may not have your best interests in mind.