Welcome everyone to the month of December and to trading the February Gold Futures. The futures First Notice Date was last week on Friday and we will move our attention to the February Futures chart.
Last week ahead of the roll date, Tuesday provided a small slip in the price while Wednesday brought a sharp drop that took me by surprise. On the open of the pit traded session, Warren Buffet made a comment in an interview to CNBC regarding his take on the Fiscal Cliff negotiations that drove Gold prices to trendline support in a hurry. Buffet suggested the Fiscal Cliff agreement would likely be made but said he did not feel that Washington would have the ability to get the job done by the end of the year. This remark was made one day after Senator Reid told reporters that he was not confident in the Republicans and Democrats at all. He thought that no progress had been made yet and traders responded by taking gains from the prior Fridays rally.
So while we are now trading past the December Futures contract, not much has changed. One day the markets are happy and taking the stairs up while the next day the markets are disappointed and taking the elevator down. Even though we started this week’s trade with a continuation of a weaker US Dollar (normally a bullish indicator for Gold) we are seeing little interest in Gold.
Despite the fact that the Gold Futures spent the majority of the prior week trading lower, the price held support and stands a chance of recovering in a hurry. I expect that major markets including Gold will continue to react to headlines regarding the Fiscal Cliff and will likely start planning ahead to the next weeks FOMC meeting. Last month, the FED was quiet ahead of the Presidential Election, but traders expect more from Bernanke and Co. in the December meeting.
While the fundamentals surrounding Gold continue to be tricky, the technicals are holding up. Each rally and each selloff ultimately has a target and this week should not be any different. As seen on the chart above, we begin this week on trendline support (Arrow #1) but there is little excitement in the Metals compared to other markets that are off to a strong start today. If support is breached, I will look for $1700 to hold with the next target potentially as low as $1666 (Arrow #2) where the 200day and the 100day moving averages converge. Overall I am still bullish the Gold and the Silver longer term, but am also well aware of the potential for markets like Gold to have technical support targets in mind prior to a big move up. For now, the support is holding up nicely, but I will feel much more comfortable if we can find a way to close higher over the next few days.
Good luck this week and as always, feel free to call or email my office directly with questions or comments. I work with traders in the Futures and Futures Options Markets on a daily basis and would be happy to discuss Gold or any other Futures Market with you. I can be reached at (888) 272-6926 or by email at bbooth@longleaftrading.com.
