HOUSTON – News, news, news!  Europe kicked in the (volcanic) “ash,” the U.K elections loom; Russian central bankers still buying gold; Anglo and Gold Fields “talking, but only informally;” Goldman damage control in full swing, SEC “witch-hunt;”  U.S. jobless claims back down to 456K (and gold spikes lower Thursday?); Greek bonds in two digit percentages;  U.S. companies taking huge write-downs to offset the costs of Obamacare already; bad weather, higher fuel costs affecting mine output and throughput; Gold and silver moving in and out and back into futures backwardation; The LBMA sends out apologists for Jeff Christian’s remarks on a service ironically called “Financial Sense;” (GATA’s Powell is game for the challenge); Congress thinks another government regulator is the answer to the failure of the dozens of porn-watching regulators already; Sovereign debt crises aplenty; PIIGS; Risk of contagion; Trouble in Belgium over language; Carbon zealots and salesmen rising like bovine flatulence and the all-Goldman-all-the-Time TV channel keeps on and on…    

It’s been quite a week for gold news junkies like us.  Trying to keep up with all the latest news can drive someone to drink, or worse.   Luckily, just about everything that affects the precious metals markets ends up distilled in a series of key indicators we market watchers keep tabs on.  So if all the news makes us pine for something “distilled” how about some charts? 

In essence, all the news is more than we all can read (much less keep up with), but the combined effect of the trading actions by tens of millions of traders, each acting in their own self interest, shows in the indicators we traders follow.  If we had to do without either (1) following a mountain of often conflicting news, and (2) following the indicators, ratios and charts which “report” to us each week, we would have to drop the first and keep the second.

Info-triage 

In a conversation this week with Bill Haynes, who operates Arizona-based CMI Gold and Silver, Bill pointed out that some of his many clients feel they have to read every single news story that even remotely affects the gold market in a bid to stay informed. What a tough assignment they have chosen for themselves.

Information is power.  Good information is.  But, too much of anything is … well, too much.

By the way, Haynes runs a tight ship at CMIGS (our highest compliment) and we think readers would do well to give his firm every consideration in their quest for quality precious metal bullion at a fair price.   

At times we all go into information overload as we hunger for more data, and then, inevitably into info-triage as we realize we cannot keep up a frenzied pace of data processing every single day. At least not and stay sane and reasonably happy.  That is why we here at GGR tend to focus on a suite of regular, measurable and get-to-knowable indicators each week and why we don’t pretend to be a “current events” hub. 

With that intro, let’s move right into what has our attention this week.  First, here’s this week’s closing table: 

This week’s Radar Screen  

The Got Gold Report – the full report – is published biweekly.  Between reports we communicate more regularly on the GGR web log, so it pays to stop by once in a while to catch the latest offerings. 

The purpose of the Radar Screen is to briefly summarize our positioning for the gold and silver markets, and also to highlight one, two or maybe even three of the dozens of indicators, ratios and graphs we keep in constant touch with at Got Gold Report.  Long-time readers know we update most of the Got Gold Report linked charts each week, even the weekends when we don’t publish the full report.

For a little while longer, readers need only pull up the last full report (even this one) and click on the chart links on “off weeks” to see any updated comments.  Changes are almost always completed by 6:00 pm EDT on Sunday evening and occasionally during the week itself as events unfold.  The chart links are always at or near the bottom of the reports.  

Pretty soon now, however, all of the chart links will have to change as we are in the process of transitioning to our new permanent web home, which we are proud to say is up and functional at www.GotGoldReport.com.

Back to this week’s Radar Screen:  We returned to the gold bullish camp on February 5, with gold then in the $1,050s.  We have been patient and cautious, moving our stops up first to the $1,080s, then near $1,105 and last weekend we moved our trading stops up to the $1,120 equivalent immediately following the SEC v Goldman news.  
 
We have been comfortable with our positioning, which allowed us to participate should gold and silver move forward, while preventing our “winner” positions from potentially becoming losing ones, then we moved our stops higher gradually to protect our growing profit positions, but still content to allow for more than normal volatility – until last weekend.  

On Monday, April 19, gold came within $4.19 of reaching our stop trigger point and had it gone below that for more than an hour we would have indeed stepped to the sidelines – calling a “payday.”  Instead, gold snapped back higher, printing $1,135.76 at the close that day, leaving us in the game for now.  Gold went on to challenge the $1,130s all four days of the rest of the week, before the short-covering rally Friday and an at-high-close of $1,157.60. 

We will have more about our positioning in the linked charts below and on the web log later this coming week, but for now our short-term dogs are still in the gold and silver foxhunt.         

This week in the Radar Screen we are focused on the “habit” of technical breakouts to re-test the prior resistance shortly after the event.  That’s what just occurred with the gold market this past week, so it is a good time to focus on it.  We also want to take a closer look at the positioning of the very largest of silver futures short sellers but first, here’s the short-term gold graph: 

Successful test of the breakout

Gold took an honest (or dishonest?) shot at giving the gold bears a failed breakout on Monday following the SEC v Goldman news, but there, and each time gold attempted a run into the $1,130s thereafter the yellow metal met with determined bidding.  We can believe that technically-minded traders all noticed the support that formed there in the $1,130s.  Moving on from here we will mark the high $1,120s as potential support with potential resistance well above in the $1,160s – until proven otherwise on both counts. 

As usual, much of this week’s commentary is contained in comments inserted in the actual linked charts below, and we will be adding additional “intel” to the “blog” often going forward, so, on to other business. 

Once again we reiterate our longer-term view that the world will most likely continue down a path of fiat currency debasement, weakening confidence in all fiat currencies.  We see the setup as long-term very bullish for gold metal and extraordinarily bullish for silver looking well ahead – if the world “holds it more or less together.”

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The above is an excerpt of the full Got Gold Report.  To continue reading please click on this link and thank you for doing so. 

Disclosure: The above contains opinion and commentary of the author.  Each person should study the issues carefully and, as always, make their own informed decisions. Disclosure:  The author and/or his family currently holds a long position in SPDR Gold Shares, net long  iShares Silver Trust, long the following “Vulture Bargain Hunter Stocks” mentioned in this report or within the last year: Timberline Resources (TLR), Paragon Minerals (PGR.V), Forum Uranium (FDC.V), Odyssey Resources (ODX.V), Terraco Gold (TEN.V), Hathor Uranium (HAT.V),  Gold Port Resources (GPO.V), Bravo Venture (BVG.V), Millrock Resources (MRO.V), Atna Resources (ATN.T), Riverstone Resources (RVS.V), Premium Exploration (PEM.V), Constantine Metal Resources (CEM.V), Canadian Shield Resources (EXP.V), Rye Patch Minerals (new) and currently holds various (approximately 15) other long and occasionally short positions in mining and exploration companies. The author receives no compensation from any company mentioned in this report.  To contact Gene use LLCCMAN (at) AOL (dotcom).