Why gold is looking good again in the charts

When attitudes become entrenched, expect the market to spring a surprise, says John C Burford - exactly as has happened in the gold market.

What a difference a month makes! In 2013, the market had got used to seeing the bears in the control of gold (and silver). By December, gold had matched its previous low of $1,180. Most traders were extremely bearish at these lows at the start of 2014. Even former supporters had turned bearish. The media was full of stories about gold bugs ditching their gold holdings. Even major trading houses were declaring their sub-$1,000 targets for this year.

Of course, this was the ideal setup for the market to spring a nasty surprise on the bears. The bearish case was simple: who needs to own gold when equities are flying? That's where the action is! Buying gold took courage.

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(Contracts of 100 Troy ounces)Row 0 - Cell 1 Row 0 - Cell 2 Row 0 - Cell 3 Open interest: 376,973
Commitments
156,78685,58522,664162,156234,810341,606343,05935,36733,914
Changes from 02/04/14 (Change in open interest: 8,694)
9,0322,770-760-3,1983,6745,0745,6843,6203,010
Percent of open in terest for each category of traders
41.622.76.043.062.390.691.09.49.0
Number of traders in each category (Total traders: 261)
10579665056187173Row 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.