A Halloween scare for the gold market

The gold bulls are running scared. John C Burford examines the charts to find out what's spooked the gold market.

Today is Halloween and right on cue, markets are giving traders some major frights.

The gold bulls are running scared, while the smaller army of gold bears is enjoying the scene. But on the other hand, with the Japanese stimulus announced overnight, it is the stock bulls that are the happy bunch with the bears in rapid retreat.

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(Contracts of 100 troy ounces)Row 0 - Cell 1 Row 0 - Cell 2 Row 0 - Cell 3 Open interest: 411,057
Commitments
207,12999,14530,768139,429244,327377,326374,24033,73136,817
Changes from 10/14/14 (Change in open interest: 13,202)
13,549-9,020733-1,20824,86713,07416,580128-3,378
Percent of open in terest for each category of traders
50.424.17.533.959.491.891.08.29.0
Number of traders in each category (Total traders: 315)
14199755154221203Row 8 - Cell 7 Row 8 - Cell 8

John is is a British-born lapsed PhD physicist, who previously worked for Nasa on the Mars exploration team. He is a former commodity trading advisor with the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and worked in a boutique futures house in California in the 1980s.

 

He was a partner in one of the first futures newsletter advisory services, based in Washington DC, specialising in pork bellies and currencies. John is primarily a chart-reading trader, having cut his trading teeth in the days before PCs.

 

As well as his work in the financial world, he has launched, run and sold several 'real' businesses producing 'real' products.