Gold Price Suffers Sludge Despite Doomsday Clock Nudge

You know the stars are brilliantly aligned when the Dow Jones Industrial Average, (aka "that index at which our parents look"), finally satiates the FinMedia's suspense by crossing the 20k level at practically the same time the so-called Doomsday Clock is nudged closer to midnight by the "WHA?", (World Handwringers of Academia). 'Tis therefore the perfect time to once again reprise one of our favourite headlines: "World Ends, Dow +2".

Gold, of course, could give a derrière du rat about all that. Having had a spritely four-week up run from last year into this, 'twas time for Gold to take a break and now consolidate, closing out the week yesterday (Friday) at 1191 for a five-day loss of 19 points or -1.6%, (over which our miner buddies are boasting, their exchange-traded fund [GDX] actually gaining a dime for the week from 23.12 to 23.22, and their like fund for Silver [SIL] netting a 20¢ gain from 37.16 to 37.36). But specific to Gold itself, we're viewing its pullback as some natural ebb within the overall flow up to at least the purple-bounded 1240-1280 resistance zone given the fresh flip of price's parabolic trend to Long which we see here in the weekly bars, (irrespective of it now being 2 1/2 minutes to midnight rather than 3):

All that said, you can tell, Gold having done so well, that we've been wary of some pullback in penning a week ago "...'tis almost a race now for price to get to ... 1240 ... (hopefully aided by the new swing of the weekly parabolic trend to Long), before the "Baby Blues" turn tail sub-80%." Regular readers know the Baby Blues are our measure of 21-day linear regression trend consistency. And mid-week -- with the Blues for both Gold and Silver seemingly en route to the mathematical impossibility of piercing the ceiling at 100% -- came this wee warning which pops up in running the BEGOS Markets "end-of-day" stuff. The following two-panel table shows Wednesday's settles on the left, and those for Friday on the right:

The word "SELL" in the table is triggered by a market's Baby Blues making an incipient move lower from levels above 80% as next shown. Here is the picture for all eight components across the last 21 trading days, led by the Bond being the first to let go some two weeks ago:

The rule of the Blues breaking down favours the pessimist's anticipating lower prices still, as 'tis what usually wills out. The exception favours the optimist, for as all things measured from prices past, what's happening now may not last. To wit, last year from 19 February through 05 April, Gold's Baby Blues dropped from +91% to -69%, whilst price actually netted a gain for that same period from 1227 to 1233, (reaching en route as high as 1287). Moreover, look above at the rightmost bar (yesterday) for both Gold and Silver, the respective closing nubs near the session's high. Perhaps "SELL" ought instead read "BUY".

What we're not necessarily "buying" is the Conference Board's lagging report of December's leading economic indicators having risen 0.5%, the second-strongest leap in over a year, especially given the slowing in Q4's annualized gross domestic product to 1.9% from Q3's 3.5% rate. Here's the Economic Barometer:

As for the new StateSide President's chanting of "up up up" as stock market indices make new all-time highs, we as ever caution that just to maintain where now 'tis -- the S&P now barely off its own record high of 2301 -- earnings had better "double double double" given our "live" price/earnings ratio presently at 35.4x. To be sure, we're having a pretty sound Q4 Earnings Season, our website page indicating that 67% of companies thus far reporting having bettered their bottom lines of a year ago. In fact parsing it out even more, with 143 of the S&P 500's earnings reported, 71% are better than last year, but the median increase across those improvements is just 13%.

"And that's no where near double, eh mmb?"

Hardly, Squire. Further, you may have seen a piece this past week that wherein George Soros sees that the "uncertainty" surrounding our new President shall be the stock market's demise; rather, we continue to see its inevitable fall as a lack of earnings rise. ('Course, György may have other pressing issues at the moment following Holland's Authority for the Financial Markets accidentally revealing his shorts to the world, any imagery for which we dispensed straightaway).

Of more appropriate, indeed cogent, imagery are the 10-day Market Profiles for the precious metals, wherein we below see Gold (left) vis-à-vis the three noted overhead trading resistors, whilst Silver (right) seems a bit more safely nestled atop underlying supporters. Silver's being better positioned up in her Profile (as opposed to that for Gold) is her having been swept higher -- adorned in her industrial metal jacket (rather than her precious metal pinstripes) -- during yesterday's buying surge into Cousin Copper, (wicked though he may be at times). Oh, she can be quite the swinger, our Sister Silver:

Time flying by, including seeing the Doomsday Clock's advance, next week already brings 2017 into February, the new month being kicked off on Wednesday with a policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee, (sans Chair press conference, i.e. what we'll read is what we'll get). So with respect to rates, shall the FOMC side with leading indicators and raise, or stand aside with slowing GDP growth in a daze? Either way, Gold ought see through the haze, even with a rate raise, as many of you have seen the following chart showing the price of Gold materially ascending through three consecutive years during the prior decade, whilst also rose the FedFunds rate. Nonetheless from our "Dept. of Repetition Dept.", (or as a valued reader oft reminds, "Say what you're going to say, say it, then say what you just said"), here 'tis once again:

Got it? Good. Now here's the State of the Stack:

The Gold Stack
Gold's Value per Dollar Debasement, (from our opening "Scoreboard"): 2662
Gold’s All-Time High: 1923 (06 September 2011)
The Gateway to 2000: 1900+
Gold’s All-Time Closing High: 1900 (22 August 2011)
The Final Frontier: 1800-1900
The Northern Front: 1750-1800
On Maneuvers: 1579-1750
The Floor: 1466-1579
Le Sous-sol: Sub-1466
Base Camp: 1377
Neverland: The Whiny 1290s
Resistance Zone: up to 1280 (from 1240)
The 300-Day Moving Average: 1230 and rising
2017's High: 1220 (24 January)
10-Session “volume-weighted” average price magnet: 1204
Trading Resistance: 1197 / 1203 / 1213
Gold Currently: 1191, (expected daily trading range ["EDTR"]: 15 points)
Trading Support: 1189
10-Session directional range: down to 1180 (from 1220) = -40 points or -3%
2017's Low: 1147 (03 January)
The Weekly Parabolic Price to flip Short: 1128

We'll wrap it here with this: Stateside, we've essentially 10 so-called "national holidays", (i.e. banks are closed and there's no delivered post). However, in our nation's ongoing effort to become more like France, (albeit that seems to suddenly have been stopped), you've likely read that Bob Kraft and his Super Bowl-bound Patriots, (which sounds like an opening act for The Quicksilver Messenger Service from back in the '60s), in their recently having merged with Henry J. Heinz and his 57 varieties, are pushing a petition to make the Monday following the overly-hyped annual event, (buried in which there's actually a football game), a national holiday to be dubbed "Smunday". Rather glum-sounding, that. Here's a more constructive festivity to benefit everyone: let's instead make 22 August an internationally-honoured holiday, the tradition being for one and all to purchase and/or give the gift of Gold, be it just a wee wafer of one gram (presently $42). Call it: "Gold Day", something truly worth celebrating!

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