There is quite a bit of speculation lately as to where the impending intermediate cycle decline will take gold down to. Today I'm going to throw my guess into the fire.
Some people expect gold to drop to $1400. Some $1300. Some even doubt that gold will ever go down again. However after watching gold for years and studying its history I think I can safely say that gold never misses an intermediate decline. Next week will be the 18th week of the current intermediate cycle. That means gold is now in the timing band for a bottom. If gold is in the timing band for a bottom a top can't be far off.
In the weekend report I discussed the impending stock market yearly cycle low and three year cycle low in the CRB that are both coming due together this summer. A yearly cycle low in stocks is the second most severe selling event ever seen in the stock market, only exceeded by a four year cycle low, which by the way is due in 2012. The three year cycle low in the CRB is the single most severe selling event for commodities. By a twist of fate these two major selling events should happen simultaneously this summer. The combination of of these two major cycles bottoming together will almost certainly intensify selling pressure into the stratosphere. In an environment like that fundamentals will go right out the window. In theory gold put in it's yearly cycle low last January at $1308. Barring something extraordinary I would not expect that low to be violated. However we could very well see something extraordinary.
While the pattern isn't "clean" there is an ongoing T-1 pattern in play on the gold chart that suggests that $1575 probably was the top of the current C-wave and if that is so and the T-1 pattern plays out as expected we should see a test of the the mid-point consolidation during the summer sell off. That consolidation zone for gold's T-1 pattern comes in at roughly $1225- $1250.
Of course I have no idea if this will play out as we move into the summer but if in July gold touches the $1250 level I think it will be the last great bargain we will get in the secular gold bull market.
The debate lately is whether or not gold still has one more leg up. For the many reasons I went over in last night's report I think it has become too dangerous to continue to play the long side in the precious metals so I don't really care anymore whether gold is going up. The risk is now high that one gets caught in an intermediate decline or worse a possible D-wave. Here is one more reason. The miners have broken below a prior daily cycle low.
This isn't a perfect signal. Of course nothing in this business works 100% of the time but this particular signal works about 80-90% of the time and those are the kind of odds it usually just isn't worth bucking.
You can see in the above chart that every intermediate decline in gold was preceded by the miners falling below a prior cycle low. That condition is now active in the current market.
As a case in point a violation of a daily cycle low in gold is the main confirmation we look for to confirm that gold has entered an intermediate degree decline.
I've marked the expected timing band for when the next intermediate low should bottom in late June to mid July. You can see that the summer low came last year in late July. The yearly cycle tends to run about 12 months on average so I wouldn't expect this to be over for at least another month to a month and a half. As it stands today gold topped on week 14. That gives it a lot of time to grind lower. As a matter of fact every intermediate decline since this phase of the bull began has dragged gold considerably below the 50 day moving average and fairly close to the 200 DMA. That would suggest gold would at least move back to $1400 if this is just a normal intermediate degree correction.
If this turns into a D-wave then we can expect at least a 38% retracement of the prior C-wave advance. This C-wave began in April of 09 at $860. A 38% retracement of that rally would drag gold back to roughly $1300.
Folks this is what you are risking getting caught in by trying to squeeze the last few pennies out of this sector. Now if gold was doing what I think it should be doing I would be happy to hang on to positions. But it's not! The weak dollar yesterday and today for that matter should be sending gold rocketing higher. So far it's not happening. Combine this with the warning sign from the miners and I simply don't want to play the game anymore. It's easier to just wait for the intermediate correction or D-wave to run it's course and then get in as close to the bottom as we can for a much safer trade and one we will be able to hold onto for 12 to 15 weeks with little fear of significant draw downs.
Often when we see small moves in the McClellan oscillator it proceeds a large volatile move in stocks. Kind of like a spring compressing.
Since it is now very late in the daily cycle and sentiment has reached exceptionally bearish levels (especially in the Nasdaq) the assumption is that any day now the market is going to rocket higher out of the three week bull flag.
My guess is we will get some news out of Europe that they have successfully kicked the can down the road for a few more months and the market will take off.
It is been my belief that stocks and the economy have been locked in a secular bear market since March of 2000. During that period we've had two recessions and two cyclical bear markets. One of those recessions was the worst since the Great Depression and the last bear market in stocks was the second worst in history.
I've said all along that printing money will not cure the problem we've gotten ourselves into. It's never worked in history and it's not going to work this time either. We can't solve a problem of too much debt with more debt. All we will accomplish is to make the problem bigger.
We are now fast approaching the period when the next crisis should arrive.
On average the stock market suffers a major correction about every four years. In a secular bear market that cyclical trough arrives as the economy sinks into recession and a stock market bear bottoms out.
The last four year cycle bottom formed in March of `09. That just happened to be the longest four year cycle in history. I've noted before that long cycles are often followed by a short cycle that compensates for the extended nature or the prior cycle. If that's the case then the next four year cycle low is due sometime in 2012. (My best guess is in the fall).
As we are still in a secular bear market then the move down into the four year cycle trough should correspond to another economic recession and cyclical bear market for stocks. Bear markets tend to last about a year and a half to two and a half years. If the next four year cycle bottoms in the implied timing band then the current cyclical bull should be topping soon.
As a matter of fact the stock market is already flashing warning signs. Three of the largest and most important sectors in the S&P have not confirmed new highs.
Another warning sign; Despite record earnings the market has only been able to move to marginal new highs and is now in jeopardy of reversing the recent breakout.
I've noted in the past that this is how major tops and bottoms are often established. Smart money sells into the breakout, or buys the break down in the case of a bottom. The trend then reverses and a major turning point is formed. Both the `02 bottom and the `07 top were put in this way.
The market is now at risk of a similar event as we've experienced a marginal breakout to new highs that is threatening to fail. Don't forget this is happening against a back drop of record earnings.
When a market can't move higher on good news something is wrong. And don't forget bull markets don't top on bad news, they top on good news.
If the market can recover and move to new highs the cyclical bull will be confirmed, but if the market continues to fade and drops back below the March 16th "tsunami" bottom it will constitute a failed intermediate cycle. If both the Dow and the Transports close back below that level we would have a Dow Theory sell signal and that would confirm the next leg down in the secular bear has begun.
It would also be a signal that the economy was unable to handle the spiking food and energy costs that were the direct result of Bernanke trying to prop up the financial system with his printing press.
Like I said, printing money has never been the answer. Every empire in history has tried this approach and not one of them has ever succeeded with it. We won't either.
Despite my bias to see new all time lows in the dollar index, I think the dollar probably put in the three year cycle low last week. Sentiment at the time had reached multi-year lows and as of yesterday the dollar had moved back above the 50 day moving average. If I'm right then this should usher in the next deflationary period just like the rally out of the `08 three year cycle low signaled a coming recession, the next leg down for stocks in the ongoing secular bear market, and a collapse of the CRB into it's 3 year cycle low.
This should also drive gold down into it's D-wave decline. Yesterday the miners made a lower low and this morning silver made a lower low. It's probably only a matter of time before gold breaks below the $1462 pivot. That would confirm that gold is now in an intermediate decline and this late in the C-wave that would almost certainly turn out to be a D-wave correction.
The good news is that sometime in late June or early July we are going to get the single best buying opportunity we will ever get for the rest of this bull market.
At this point the goal is to preserve capital and get to that major D-wave bottom with plenty of dry powder.
Don't let the title fool you, for reasons I've outlined in this weekend's report I think gold likely has one more move to new highs before the D-wave begins.
However, the action in the dollar and silver this week have probably taken the parabolic phase of this C-wave off the table. Rather than the normal sharp spike up it appears that this C-wave is going to end with a more modest move than prior C-waves. That being said it did last much longer and gain just as much above the prior C-wave top as any other C-wave. So in terms of duration and magnitude this C-wave has fulfilled every expectation.
I've noted in the past that a D-wave is a regression to the mean, profit taking event. That regression tends to be most severe when the C-wave ends with a parabolic move. Action and reaction.
However this time it appears there will likely be no parabolic rally to top the C-wave. In that case the D-wave will probably be milder than prior D-waves. As a point of reference every D-wave so far has retraced at least 62% of the prior C-wave advance.
Without the parabolic stretch I think it's likely that the impending D-wave will only retrace roughly 50% of this C-wave. If gold pushes up to a marginal new high slightly above $1600 (in the weekend report), then it will probably only drop to around $1250 which just happens to mark the upper boundary of last summer's consolidation zone.
What should follow after that is a fairly strong A-wave surge. A-waves usually test but don't break to new highs. At that point gold will enter a long sideways period to consolidate the massive gains made during the this last C-wave. During this period it will get very tough to make money in the precious metals market.
However there is still some upside potential once gold puts in the daily cycle low that is trying to form now. Great potential during the D-wave if you know how to use puts and excellent upside potential during the A-wave next fall, before the metals sink into the consolidation doldrums.
This year still has great opportunities left and of course we still have the next C-wave to look forward to in 2013. That one should make this C-wave look puny in comparison.
Gold is on day 4 of the decline into it's daily cycle low. On average gold puts in a cycle trough about every 20-30 days. This one has stretched slightly long, no doubt driven by QE2. As a matter of fact almost all cycles have been stretched the last two years by the Fed's printing activities. Consequently all markets have been swinging wildly between bullish and bearish extremes.
Think of it as a rubber band. The further you stretch it the harder it snaps back once the pressure is released. Gold and especially silver were stretched extremely tight during the last couple of months. Now that the profit taking event is here it is understandably severe simply because the upside was so powerful.
However QE hasn't ended. So once the correction runs it's course we should see another massive swing to the upside, again driven by free money and the extremes to which gold moves to the downside. The further the correction goes the more powerful the rebound will be once selling pressure exhausts.
It will also be driven by the many investors and traders that got thrown from the bull during the correction chasing as the metals surge higher out of the cycle bottom.
I've noted in the subscriber reports that gold will usually reach certain short term oversold conditions at daily cycle bottoms. We are now getting close to those conditions with this mornings move.
As you can see a daily cycle correction will almost always drive the 5 day RSI into oversold levels before bottoming. We also usually see a tag or penetration of the lower Bollinger band at daily cycle lows. As I write gold is about $1499/$1500. The lower Bollinger band will rise to about $1490 today.
Someone trying to pick a bottom should be fairly close if they buy on a touch of the lower Bollinger band.
Stocks and oil are also moving down into daily cycle lows. Oil especially is very deep in it's cycle and due for a bottom soon. I would guess it will bottom within a day either way of gold. Oil is slightly ahead of gold and has already moved to short term oversold levels deep enough to form a cycle bottom. I doubt it will drop too much further than $105 and I certainly think buyers will step in at $100.
There is a possibility that gold, stocks and oil will all form a bottom sometime tomorrow on the May jobs report. If the report is weak (which is a strong possibility) we could see a gap down open. If the gap is recovered by the close and especially if the market can close positive we will probably have our cycle low in place.
We would then need to see a swing low on Monday to get the first confirmation that the correction has run it's course.
After what should be a brief pause this week commodity markets will move into the greatest rally of the last decade. As usual I will stay focused on the precious metal markets. They have been the leaders during this entire move out of the `08 bottom and they will see the largest parabolic move of all commodities during the final leg up. I've noted in the past that consolidation size is usually a good leading indicator of how large the following rally will be. Gold just consolidated for 5 months. That is going to produce a massive rally. It's already produced a large move and it's just started.
Gold and especially silver have already come much further than I originally expected at this stage of the game. I was looking for gold around $1650 and silver at $50 by the top of this C-wave. Silver has already reached that level and gold tagged $1575 yesterday. This has unfolded in only the first two daily cycles. The third daily cycle is where the real parabolic gains are going to occur.
The third and last daily cycle higher during the semi parabolic move in `09 added 200 points in a little over a month.
The coming parabolic move will be significantly more powerful than what happened in `09 as this will be a final C-wave move. We should easily see a 300- 350 point move in gold and it's anyone's guess as to how far silver rallies during the final parabolic finish. $65 or even $70 isn't out of the question.
Now for the downside. The final dollar collapse is also going to drive the rest of the commodity markets wildly higher. That will include the energy markets. Oil is due for a brief move down into its cycle low this week too. Once that has run it's course we will see oil soar higher, possibly even reaching the `07 high of $150.
$150 oil collapsed the global economy in `07 and the economy was in much better shape with much lower unemployment than it is now. In an environment of already high unemployment $150 oil and soaring food prices are going to drive the global economy into a recession even worse than what we suffered in `08. Social conflict in the middle east and many emerging economies is going to intensify. People in depressed countries already can't buy food to feed their families, what do you think will be the response if food prices double again? The world is about to pay the price for Bernanke's attempt to print prosperity and it is going to be a very steep price and cost many lives.
