It's taken much longer than I originally expected, but we now have confirmation that gold's D-Wave decline has begun.
A D-Wave decline is a normal, regression to the mean, profit-taking event that occurs when gold gets too stretched above the mean. It is not a take down by an anti-gold cartel. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can look at the long-term chart of gold and tell that this is not a manipulated market. This is just a normal secular bull market, and it is acting exactly like a normal bull market acts.
Folks, these conspiracy theories are now bordering on the insane. I even heard the other day someone blame margin increases for the drop in gold. I guess they completely forgot that we've already had two margin increases in the last two months that had virtually no effect on gold.
Every bull market in history has its share of con men and scam artists. Think Bernie Madoff, Enron, WorldCom, etc. The gold manipulation nonsense is just one of the many scams that are going to hitch a ride on this bull. Actually it's one of the oldest scams in the book. You find a bull market, make a one-way bet on rising prices, tout these "to the moon" prices to suck in subscribers lured by the reward of gigantic financial gains, and then blame an invisible cartel every time a correction occurs that you don't foresee. It's a great way of not having to take responsibility when subscribers get caught in a normal corrective decline.
Needless to say I don't play those kind of games. I try to get subscribers out ahead of intermediate declines. Yes, I'm usually a little early. I have the same problem with tops that every other human being in the world has. They are virtually impossible to call in real time. Subscribers to the SMT/Gold Scents newsletter have sidestepped all of this D-Wave decline and instead have been 100% invested in the dollar index. The only asset initiating a strong trend higher.
Actually there is a fundamental reason for a D-Wave decline besides just a normal regression to the mean, profit-taking event. The dollar has now moved into the aggressive stage of the rally out of the three year cycle low. Deflation is starting to take hold in the world again. In a deflation defaulting debt collapses the money supply. There is a growing shortage of dollars in the world. That's the reason why the dollar index is rocketing higher. As the value of the dollar rises during this deflation it takes less and less of them to buy an ounce of gold. You can see this same process unfolded as the dollar rallied out of the 2008 three year cycle low.
On a much shorter timescale gold is now in the timing band for a daily cycle low. My best guess is that sometime over the next 1 to 2 weeks gold will move down to tag the 200 day moving average. That will trigger short covering and a very convincing snapback rally. However it's still too early for an intermediate degree bottom. There should be one more daily cycle down into November before the D-Wave puts in its final bottom.
I suspect the next daily cycle is going to be a volatile nightmare that will chew up bulls and bears alike before a final plunge down below the 200 day moving average somewhere between $1300-$1400. As all D-Wave declines have retraced at least 50 to 60% of the previous C-wave advance that would be a minimum target for the November bottom. At that point we should see a very powerful A-wave advance triggered by the extreme oversold conditions generated at the D-Wave bottom. More in the weekend report...
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As many of you already know I expected the dollar index to put in a major three year cycle low sometime this year. The normal timing band would have been for a bottom in the spring. The recent breakout and move to new highs has confirmed that the May bottom did in fact mark the three year cycle low. As expected that also marked the top of the cyclical bull market in stocks.
It's widely expected that the Fed will announce operation Twist at today's FOMC meeting. Obviously if printing several trillion dollars didn't save the economy, then rotating the Fed's balance sheet from short-term interest rates to long-term in the attempt to hold down the long end of the yield curve isn't going to have any effect at all as the approaching recession intensifies. Interest rates are already at historic lows.
Interest rates aren't the reason why people are not borrowing.With continued high unemployment There simply isn't enough demand for businesses to expand their operations.The American consumer is so deeply in debt that he can't service it. Unfortunately, we can't print money like the US government so it doesn't help us to go deeper into debt. The US consumer will not be borrowing money any time soon.
The bottom line is operation twist will be a miserable failure just like QE1 and QE2.
The stock market, and gold are now moving into the timing band for the next daily cycle low (selling event). The only question now is whether the announcement of operation Twist this afternoon will initiate a short term knee-jerk reaction higher, or whether the market will immediately continue to sell off into that next cycle low that is due to bottom sometime in the next 11 days.
I expect gold to bottom a little sooner as its daily cycle tends to be slightly shorter.
But gold also is at a critical stage. It must hold above the prior daily cycle low of $1705. If it fails to do that it will signal that an intermediate degree decline has begun. It would also signal a left translated intermediate cycle which would have high odds of moving below the prior intermediate degree bottom of $1478.
As you can see in the chart below gold began to struggle just as soon as the aggressive stage of the dollar rally began.
As the stock market moves down into the next daily cycle low and the selling pressure intensifies, this should drive the dollar index much higher. It remains to be seen if gold can reverse this pattern of weakness in the face of dollar strength, especially since the dollar will almost certainly be rallying violently during the intense selling pressure that is coming in the stock market.
All we can do now is wait to see what the initial reaction to operation Twist will be this afternoon. Will there be a temporary knee-jerk rally that quickly fails, or will the market just continue down after yesterdays reversal?
I realize that most people that come to this blog are bullish on gold. I myself am definitely bullish long-term. That being said warning signs are starting to build.
Since gold is down this morning there's a good chance that the mining stocks are going to break the intermediate trend line today. The complete failure to follow through on the move above 600 is also concerning. Usually after an asset has tested an area three times the breakout occurs with strong follow-through.
Gold is also in jeopardy of breaking the intermediate trend line.
A move below $1705 would confirm a failed daily cycle and a left translated intermediate cycle. That would almost certainly lead to a D-wave decline.
Every D wave so far has retraced 50-62% of the preceding C-wave advance. If it turns out that $1923 was the top of the C-wave then we can expect a move back to the $1400 to $1500 level.
Moreover as this would be a left translated intermediate cycle it should move below the prior intermediate low. Taking that into consideration it would be more likely that gold would decline to test the consolidation zone around $1400 before putting in a final D-wave bottom.
I've mentioned before that C-wave tops tend to occur slightly above a big round psychological number. We currently have a 2b reversal at $1925.
For those people holding gold or mining stocks your position size needs to be small enough that you don't do serious damage to your account if gold takes out $1705 as that would confirm that a D-wave decline has begun and probably still has another $300 to go before a final bottom.
