Gold Is Not Back In Favor Yet…

Despite the decline this past week, gold seems to be regaining favor with global investors, as just a week earlier it had been flirting with the $1,800 an ounce mark. Quite a change from the sentiment in early summer when some investors were questioning whether the yellow metal’s decade-long bull run was coming to a close.

The rebound in investor sentiment toward gold, of course, coincided with the launching of open-ended QE3 (or QE infinity) by the Federal Reserve. Since then gold has “barely paused for breath. It has, as discussed previously, touched all-time highs in terms of euros or Swiss francs.

QE3 certainly seemed to worry some investors. These people moving into gold are concerned about things such as competitive devaluations and the debasement of currencies in an attempt to pay back enormous debt loads with a cheaper currency. This road – currency debasement – eventually leads to inflation most believe.

So it is really is not surprising that, according to UBS, investors in exchange traded funds raised their holdings by 158 tons since the beginning of August to a record 2,681 tons of bullion recently.

Many of the world’s best investors are in agreement with the average person putting his or her money into gold. The list of names is impressive: George Soros, John Paulson, Ray Dalio and Bill Gross.

Ray Dalio, founder and chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates – the world’s largest macro hedge fund, told CNBC viewers recently: “Gold should be part of everybody’s portfolio. We have a situation now when you have too much debt. Too much debt leads to the printing of money to make it easier to service. All of those things mean that some portion [of a portfolio] should be in gold.”

Dalio’s conclusion? “Only gold and real assets would survive.”

All of this positive macro news about gold has managed to influence the gold chart too. According to asset manager Blackrock, “the gold chart has turned decidedly bullish.” Blackrock was speaking about the so-called “golden cross”. That occurs when the 50-day moving average moves above the 200-day moving average.

Blackrock noted that the last time gold’s chart looked so good was shortly after the Federal Reserve announced QE1, the first round of money printing. It said that if gold does the same thing it did back then, the price of the precious metal will hit $2,400 an ounce by next summer. Of course, macro factors like Chinese and Indian demand for physical gold will play a major role in whether we reach those lofty levels.

While I am bullish on gold longer term the chart patterns, volume and sentiment for both gold and silver are overwhelmingly bearish looking for the next couple weeks. I sharp pullback is likely to unfold before they take another run at resistance and breakout to new highs.

Chris Vermeulen