Red-Hot Resources

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Friday, August 18, 2006

Whom Gods Destroy ... They First Make Eat Crow

Yesterday, I said that it looked like "one of the best times in weeks" to buy gold. Gold responded by KER-PLUNK-ing through what I thought was a strong recent uptrend. Clearly, I was wrong.

I made some phone calls. Other people I trust aren't as worried about this as I am. They say that the gold market is still thin -- thinner than usual for this time of year -- as traders nurse volatility hangovers. A drop on thin trading activated a lot of stops -- no doubt set below that support I was harping about -- and the sell-off snowballed. New support is at 614-615.

So where does that leave us now? Well, if you look at a weekly chart of gold, you can see that longer-term uptrends are still intact. Will gold pull back to test those uptrends at 614 ... even 568? I don't know. And do you have the big brass ones to buy at 568 when everyone else is wailing about gold's demise?

Mind you, stocks could start moving up ahead of a gold rebound. It's all an expectations game. I'm longer-term VERY bullish -- yesterday's crap-out didn't shake that out of me -- for all the fundamental reasons I've been harping on for months. So we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile, silver is still holding its uptrend (I was already more bullish on silver), but can silver stay bullish if gold consolidates? I'm not sure about that either. My crystal ball has turned cloudly as I digest a large portion of crow.

Check out my new gold and energy blog at MoneyAndMarkets.com