As I write Gold is currently down $10.80 at $886.90, taking a much needed breather from its recent upward thrust. If Gold can hold and consolidate around this level the next target will be $920 and then $950. Today’s post contains articles on how to trade gold for those who don’t like risk, much tecnical analysis and more… -jschulmansr

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A Guide To Buying Gold for the Risk Averse – Seeking Alpha

By: J Clinton Hill of Hillbent.com

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That’s it for today click on one of the subscribe buttons to receive all the latest news for Gold and Precious Metals, and much more!

Good Investing! – Jschulmansr

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Hourly Action In Gold From Trader Dan

Source: Trader Dan Norcini of JRMineset

Gold appears to have run into resistance near the $920 level which is blocking its upward path for now. Since we know that the funds are purely technical traders and have been buying, both adding new longs and for those who were short, getting out by covering, while open interest has been steadily increasing, it is safe to say that the bullion banks are the ones blocking the upward trajectory. Nothing new there and it does not take much observation for those who have been watching gold the last 8 years to know this.

The inability of the mining shares to continue higher yesterday, even in the face of a much higher bullion price, gave some paper longs at the Comex a reason to cash in some profits and emboldened the bears to dig in their heels.

To show you how fickle these markets have become, do you remember when gold was following the equity markets around not all that long ago. They went down – it went down. They went up – it went up. It was all about the famous “risk aversion” or deleveraging trade. Now the exact opposite seems to be happening. The equities go up and gold goes down. Well guess what they have come up with to now explain this turn of events? Yes – risk aversion!

Here’s the latest – equities are going up because supposedly some of the news from the banking sector is not as dire as many have come to expect. The bearish sentiment in the equity markets is misplaced. Gold has been going up because of banking sector fears and currency risk. Ergo – gold should now go down as those fears are overblown because the risk averse psychology has become too excessive. In other words – all’s clear and the water is just lovely so dive on in!

I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

Had enough – how about this one?  – Gold has now broken its relation to the Dollar. The fact that the Dollar was being bid up was evidence of a panic into safety. Now that the Dollar is going down it means that the panic is subsiding. Therefore gold should go down as well which means the inverse relationship between gold and the Dollar has been severed.

Again, I am just repeating the latest mantra du jour.

Just wait and see – when gold starts going up as the Dollar starts going down the same guys who came up with the latest explanations will be singing how the historic relationship between gold and the Dollar has been restored once again. No matter what happens – they will have proven to be right! Geniuses all!

It reminds me of the global warming crowd. When droughts were springing up and record highs were being shattered it was called global warming. When record snowfalls suddenly showed up and record lows were being set as people all over the globe freezing their keisters off,  it morphed into climate change. No matter which way the temperatures go, that crowd will always be right! Shame on you climate destroyers for not cramming your family into something that more closely resembles a go-kart rather than an automobile on your assorted trips around town. If you had any concern for the planet you would be riding a horse to work. Then again that creature gives off methane gas which is actually being seriously considered as a pollutant and thus liable to be taxed by the idiots in Washington DC, so no matter what you do, you are royally screwed. It’s too bad that there remains no undiscovered country where freedom loving people who believe in honest money and limited government could sail off to and found a nation where the money changers and government control freaks would be banned from entering.

By the way, did you notice that the new President just signed the death sentence for the US automotive industry yesterday by mandating new mileage efficiency standards – all in the name of saving us from a problem that does not exist? Yep – nothing like telling an industry already on life support that their most profitable units, the bigger and safer vehicles, will have to go in favor of smaller, less profitable ones. Don’t touch the unions however whose demands have forced the US auto industry into concentrating their efforts on the more profitable lines (the larger vehicles) in an effort to offset the financial drain imposed upon them by the exorbitant salaries and benefits that they are forced to pay these same unionized workers.

Remember that big move up in Copper yesterday? Remember how the existing home sales number ran all the shorts out and pushed the market right into technical chart resistance threatening an upside breakout? Well, that is history today as it went “KERPLUNK”! To show you how utterly insane these markets have become and the farce that the hedge funds have turned them into, consider this – Copper closed at 1.4720 on Friday. On Monday it rallied sharply blasting upwards closing at 1.5865 reaching a high of 1.6310. Today it collapsed making a low of 1.4545 and closed at 1.4850, down 10 cents a pound. In other words, it went NO WHERE in TWO DAYS but in the process it careened all over the place blowing out upside buy stops before triggering a wave of downside sell stops today. And to think this hedge-fund created madness has become the price discovery mechanism by which commercial producers and end users are somehow supposed to be able to enter into contracts and hedge risk to ensure profitability. I have been watching these futures markets for more than 20 years and I have never seen such idiocy. This is what happens when computers have taken over trading decisions based on nothing but the latest price tick. I know it sounds excessive to some, but I honestly have come to believe that the entire futures industry is very close to being destroyed by these out of control hedge funds. A commercial entity simply cannot use these markets to hedge and without commercials these markets cannot survive since they will serve no useful purpose whatsoever as all that will be left is hedge funds trading their algorithms against the algorithms of other hedge funds with the commercials using forward contracts amongst themselves and bypassing the futures markets altogether.

Back to gold – technically gold still looks very good although it has stalled just below the $920 level. Ideally, it would hold support on any subsequent RE-test of the Downsloping trendline of the wedge formation on the weekly chart which is drawn off the July and October highs. That comes in near the $880 level. I would prefer to see it consolidate above the $880 level but would view an ability to hold above the $870 level as still friendly. Failure at $870 would give the shorts enough impetus to try to shove it back to $850- $840.

Upside resistance remains near $920 while more formidable resistance comes in near the $945-$950 region. That corresponds to both Downsloping trendline resistance drawn off the peak high made back in early 2008 and the July high which also happens to be the highs made back in October last year. Those are the parameters we are working with technically.

On the daily chart, all of the major moving averages, including the 100 day moving average are all now trending solidly upwards. The 10 day is close to making a bullish upside crossover of the 20 day which will give some trend following funds a reason to buy while the RSI remains below the 70 level. So we have room to run to the upside IF, and this is a big IF, the market can push through the bullion bank selling near $920. The inability of the mining shares to continue moving higher does concern me however. In an ideal bullish environment for gold, the shares move higher alongside the bullion price.

It looks to me like the weakness in crude oil today is contributing some downward pressure in gold as many of those fund algorithms use its price action as a factor in their selling or buying of commodities. Weaker crude oil prices give rise to the deflation scenario and that still leads some to sell gold because of misguided notions of how it will perform during periods of general price deflation. Again, gold is primarily a currency – not a commodity, and it will rise when faith in paper currencies falters, all of the arguments of the deflationists notwithstanding. When governments slash interest rates to NOTHING and issue more and more paper IOU’s, the sheer supply guarantees that they will lose value meaning that investors seeking wealth preservation are buying scraps of paper that pay zero return and lose any “value” that they might have once possessed. Gold thrives in such periods as it is solid, substantial and cannot be diluted by conniving Central Bankers. Which would you rather have in your hand during times of financial chaos and upheaval – a promise by a politician or a metal which has stood the test of 6,000 years? If you have any problem making a decision, I suggest you take a good look at the price chart of the British Pound and especially the price of gold in Sterling terms.

The HUI and the XAU were unable to manage strong closes above their former double tops make back in mid-December of last year and early January of this year in yesterday’s session meeting up with selling from the opening bell and never quite being able to shrug that off. Still, their charts look good as they are consolidating right around that former double top. I would like to see them hold above the 10 and 20 day moving averages near the 115 – 116 level in the XAU and 279 – 282 in the HUI.

Bonds finally saw an up day today which is to be expected given the beating that they have taken of late. The downdraft in bonds could be called “parabolic in reverse”. Jim likes to call it a “waterfall”, which is an apt description considering the fact that if one were long while this has occurred, they have indeed taken a bath in their trading accounts or better yet, drowned under a sea of red ink.

The Dollar is generally weaker today although it has bobbed back and forth between a small gain and a small loss. The charts still appear to show a technical failure near the 88 level. It is treading water above the 50 day moving average (barely) while the 100 day lies near the 83.50 level. A breach of that level and it should move back down to retest 80.

Click chart to enlarge today’s hourly action in Gold in PDF format with commentary from Trader Dan Norcini

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1. Before 2009 is out the next major economic shock will become obvious. There is not one major funded retirement program intact thanks to the manufacturers and distributors of OTC derivatives. The unfunded ones are a total loss. Retirement in the future is totally out of the question. Many now retired will end up in the same situation as those trying to live off fixed income. Both categories are being culled from the human gene pool.
 
2. By my 68th birthday Obama will recognize his position as a bagged President, knowing then that the economic situation does not have any practical solution.
 
3. By July 4th, 2009 the rally in the US dollar will have become a simple hope for the lows to hold.
 
4. My long held targets of $1250 and $1650 for Gold that were once laughed at as outrageously high can now be laughed at for being painfully too low.
 
5. Only gold and related shares are insurance against the economic cataclysm now taking place.

Everyone is looking for where and when the top in gold will come. Will it be Jim’s $1650 or Alf Field’s $10,000 plus before it comes back down?
 
To put it nicely, you are all wrong. Gold is going up and STAYING up.
 
There is no top to look for because like all things people strive for, the top does not exist.
 
Gold will trade within $200 of a given point as a product of the Master of the Financial Universe, Paul Volcker, taking control when all this is totally out of control. He will instate the revitalized and modernized Federal Reserve Gold Certificate Ratio, not gold convertibility, and not tied to interest rates as an automaticity. Only then can Volcker put in place policy backed by the sitting administration that has a provable history of starting the change from deficit to surplus, his price of saving the world one more time.
 
The Gold mining business will then be the best business there is and the highest dividend paying monetary utility.
 
Respectfully yours,
Jim
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The Resurgence of Junior Gold Miners – Seeking Alpha

Junior mining stocks were all the rage back in the early stages of the gold bull market. During the time frame of 2002-2006 many junior miners were putting in annual gains of 200%, 300% or more. Some junior miners like Seabridge Gold (SA) produced 3-year returns in excess of 1500%! It seemed like you could close your eyes and randomly point your finger at a list of junior gold miners, buy the stock and sell a few weeks later for a gain of 30% or more. No feasibility study, no permits, no management experience or path to production… no problem!

But volatile stocks are volatile in both directions and when the gold market corrected, junior miners lost all of those gains and then some. Amateur investors that were patting themselves on the back and recommending investments to their buddies based on their recent success were caught off-guard by the severity of the decline in the junior mining sector and suddenly found that they gave back most or all of their gains. To be sure, some booked profits and got out before the ship sank, but most were caught unsuspecting and unwilling to believe the party could be over so quickly. Many junior miners lost 80% or more of their market cap during the past year or two.

Precious metals investors have a sour taste in their mouth in regards to junior miners and have largely dismissed the entire sector as too risky. For many investors, junior miners have been removed from their portfolios, watch lists and consideration set for future investments. Newsletter writers and analysts that couldn’t contain their excitement over the next “5-bagger” rarely mention a word about juniors these days. While much of this condemnation is warranted, I think we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

While I will acknowledge that 75% or more of junior mining companies are not good investments and many will go out of business with credit markets contracting, there are still quite a few impressive juniors that deserve a second look now that the dust has settled. Mine production is decreasing and the larger miners will need to acquire junior miners with quality properties in order to add to their pipeline and keep their production numbers growing. After a massive sell-off that brought the entire sector crashing down, some of the most promising juniors have finished a bottoming pattern, consolidated and have already began moving up very impressively. Cash-strapped investors and weak hands have been shaken free of their junior mining shares as the focus has shifted to more “safe” and liquid investments. Has this produced an opportunity for savvy precious metals investors to pick up quality mining companies at undervalued prices? Here are my main criteria for selecting which junior mining companies are worth my investment dollars.

1. Already producing or moving toward production in the next 1-2 years
2. Quality properties in politically-stable areas with necessary road access
3. Proven and probable resources that justify a higher market cap
4. Seasoned management that has a track record of bringing projects to production
5. Healthy balance sheet with cash on hand and/or the ability to raise capital easily

Many of the companies that meet most or all of the criteria above have already bottomed and are quietly posting exceptional gains that outpace those of the major producers. Even with today’s decline in gold equities, many of my favorite juniors are up 100% or more since their respective Q4 2008 lows. A few of these companies were recommended in the premium subscription service and have been masked out of respect to paying subscribers. All of the gains listed below were produced in just 1-3 months and illustrate the explosion in junior miners that most analysts and newsletter writers seem to be missing.

click to enlarge

As the entire gold and silver sector has done well over the time period, I have included the PHLX Gold and Silver Index (XAU) index at the bottom for comparison sake. While the XAU is up 85%, the average gain for the junior mining companies that we track over the same time period is 171% or double the gain of XAU. Junior miners are not only joining in this latest rally, they are leading the rally and gaining at twice the pace of the major gold mining companies.

Those that are comfortable with a higher risk/reward proposition might want to take a second look at junior mining companies during 2009. If the trend continues or accelerates as investors warm back up to juniors, we could see the return of another explosive few years for junior mining companies as gold pushes above $1,000 on its way towards its inflation-adjusted high of $2,300.

Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Now From One of the Masters’ Himself Jim Sinclair

Jim’s Outlook On 2009

First, to keep things in proper perspective, GLD has already appreciated 27% since Nov 12, 2008. Also, let us not forget that central banks have a perverted sense of humor and plenty of “funny money” and other diversionary tricks up their sleeves to defer the inevitable arrival of inflation. With this as our background, I will jump right into my strategic analysis for trading or investing in gold.

GLD hit resistance at 90.19, has retreated and appears headed to test support at 86.50 with the possibility of also filling a minor gap at the 85 level.

If support holds, the natural inclination is to buy (entry at 86.75 with a stop loss at 84.12 for -3% maximum loss). Assuming one is playing this trade for an exit at its most recent resistance, i.e. at 90.19, the risk to reward ratio is only at 1.33. In a fear-driven market environment, I am strongly inclined to pass on these odds (even with beer goggles).

Ideally, a trade with a minimum risk to reward ratio at 3 or 4 is much more seductive, even in interesting times like these. However, to find the ideal opportunity, one needs to be patient and think counter-intuitive to the buy low and sell high paradigm. Hypothetically (I only say “hypothetically” because I have been long GLD at 74.85 since Oct 29, 2008), I would wait for GLD to break above its resistance at 90.19 and buy at $90.50. This would confirm that there is additional demand and fresh support at this level.

Here is where the trade can get a little tricky. There is some resistance at the 92 level and one should probably anticipate a minor pullback and retest of the newly established level of support at the 90 area. However, if support is violated, I am willing to accept a stop loss at 89 for a -1.5% maximum loss of capital. In the majority of instances when support fails the “retest”, this signals a false breakout.

Now let’s get to the good part. If the breakout is legitimate, then GLD should run to the 97.50 area, which is its next level of major resistance and also where I would definitely be inclined to book some short-term profits or at least hedge my position with long puts and/or short calls. Under this scenario, this trade presents a much more attractive risk to reward ratio at 5.24.

Gold certainly has both technical and fundamental positives going for it. The short, intermediate, and long term are all trending upward while the monetary policies of global central banks reflect a desperate willingness to accept future inflation to avert the immediate threat of deflation. Another tail wind, also aiding gold’s bullish movement, is the recent weakness and apparent correction in the U.S. Dollar Index.

In summary, the example of the above trading strategy is an opinion on how to play gold for those who are risk averse and can ill afford to lose more capital. Otherwise, for those turned on by a fundamentally bullish or bearish bias towards the precious metal, assume the position (pun intended) and enjoy the ride along with all its ups and downs. Yeah Baby!!!

Disclosures: Hillbent.com, Inc. or its affiliates may own positions in the equities mentioned in our reports. We do not receive any compensation from any of the companies covered in our reports

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