HUI has "Issues"

The mining shares still continue to sink lower seemingly unable to attract sufficient buying to stem the flow of red ink being seen across the sector. As a fundamentalist, I think one can make the argument that some of the leading shares in the sector are severely undervalued against the price of gold; however, as a technician, one has to respect the chart action be that as it may.

I am presenting a monthly chart but wish to note that the last trading day for February has yet to arrive so there remains sufficient time for the index to recover. It is however flirting with some important chart support level. I thought that the index might have found enough buying near 380 to bottom it. That is evidently not the case.

What concerns me with this chart, and again, the month is not yet out, is the fact that the NEGATIVE DIRECTIONAL INDICATOR is at its highest level since the move lower in the middle of the credit crisis of 2008. The bottom of that move lower in the index was accompanied by the peak in the negative DMI near the 30 level. This -DMI is currently sitting at -26.53. I have noted this level on the chart with a dashed red line.

One might make the argument based on this alone that the shares have now reached oversold levels commensurate with a bottom. That might be true but as of right now, we do not have any technical confirmation of such; we only have an extreme oversold reading based only on this particular indicator. You will notice the lack of any white candle whatsover. In other words, there is no buying in size sufficient to absorb the continued selling occuring in the sector. There is buying just not enough of it.

Here is the problem, the ADX, the solid navy blue line, is rising even as the -DMI is rising while it is above the +DMI (the blue line). That only happened very briefly back in 2008. Keep in mind that a rising ADX indicates the beginning of a trend but generally it needs to get above  the 20 level to be valididated.

BAck in 2008 as it began to turn higher while above the 20 level, the Fed announced the inception of QE1 and that put an abrupt end to the slide in the gold shares, as well as everything else on the planet it seems. Now, we are witnessing the rising of the ADX (it is still below 20) with chatter that the Fed will end the QE sooner than expected. I personally do not believe that they can but what i believe is of no consequence when it comes to what the majority of hedge funds/large investors believe.

While not a particular fan of Head and SHoulder patterns for predictive purposes (those patterns are highly overrated), it should be noted that the index is sitting right on the neckline. A breach on a montly closing basis would get the bearish chatter going even more against this sector but traders need to pay attention regardless.

There is a band of congestion near 320 - 310 that should attract enough buying to at least drop the index into a congestion pattern at a bare minimum should price get there. Let's hope it does not for the sake of those long suffering gold share bulls.

One last thing, you will notice that the HUI tends to make SPIKE BOTTOMS when it finally does exhaust the selling pressure. If it can do this before the end of this month and recapture the 400 level in the process, it should be a fairly reliable signal that the worst is over. We simply have to wait and see.