Gold Finds a Few Friends near $1300

As many already know by now, gold had been moving steadily lower throughout the New York trading session when a late-in-that-session small wave of buying brought the market back off its worst levels and actually allowed it to trade on the plus side of unchanged for a brief moment. I am unclear as to what the reason was that caused the bounced but it did occur rather rapidly and without much fanfare or fresh news that I saw. My thinking is that some shorts who faded the move higher on the release of last week's FOMC statement, decided to ring the cash register when the market traded down both into a technical support level on the chart. Also, the market had completely surrendered all of the gains it put on related to that same FOMC release and then some. Perhaps the thinking was to go ahead and book some gains and wait for another bounce higher into which to sell.

It did not hurt gold also to have the HUI, which has been falling faster than Obama's approval ratings, finally manage a bounce higher today. That, more than anything, seems to be to have been the catalyst for the move higher off of the lows at the Comex.

Technically, market remains range bound between an overhead resistance zone noted on the chart and a support zone beneath the market which extends to psychological support at round number $1300 and to just below that level which is where the market bounced early in the session last Wednesday when the FOMC statement was released.

For gold to have a chance at moving higher now, it will need to take out that $1332 level. Whether it is setting up a large range trade between $1375 and $1305 or so remains to be seen. If it is repelled by $1332 - $1330, it will be seen as a strongly bearish reaction. If that is the case, I would look for aggressive selling that will test the bottom of support down near $1296.

The bulls bought themselves a bit of time today but they have a lot of work to attract some fresh converts to their cause.

With copper and silver both lower today, with crude oil moving lower and with the grains not managing more than a bounce higher at this point, any inflation issues that might be seen originating from the commodity complex are nowhere in sight at the present time.

Also, in what has to amount to an amazing slight of hand feat, the Fed, through its various talking heads, has managed to drive down that all important yield on the Ten Year Treasury note away from what I believe they are viewing is the DANGER ZONE of 3.0% yield. More than anything else, I believe that they are watching this very closely and will fine tune their comments and statements into corralling this particular instrument. Expect to see the DOVES appear on any approaches by the Ten Year back to that level.

Along that line, I believe gold will be ultra sensitive to this as well since it was talk about a rising interest rate environment that has been hurting the yellow metal.

And lastly, hats off to Senator Ted Cruz for doing whatever it takes to remove this albatross which should be known as the "UNAFFORDABLE" Health Care Act from around our collective necks by mounting a filibuster in the Senate.

Just yesterday I received the "good news" how affordable this abomination is for me personally with an increase of $850/year, IF, I can even keep the same plan which remains unclear at this point. My agent tells me he has been talking to all of his clients and giving them the bad news for the last two weeks. No one is happy about it, and I mean, No one and yet the political class tells us that we are stuck with it as the establishment Republicans actually are spending their energies not to get rid of this job killing, freedom sapping mess but instead are attacking Senators Cruz and Lee who are trying to get rid of it.

They are just as much to blame as the Democrats who saddled us with this pile of excrement in the first place. Ironically, the Unions, who have an unholy marriage with the Democrat Party, are furious that they are not getting waivers to opt out of the thing. Serves them right for promoting it and spending their hard-working members' dues to shove it through the Senate and into law. It is the members who are the ones who will get hurt the worst from this terrible, ill-conceived and horrendous law. Maybe, just maybe, this will be another body blow to the union leadership as their members wake up and realize how poorly served that they have been.

Oh and if that were not enough, we are back to reaching the limit of the governments' borrowing ability once again. Sigh - what an empty shell the United States has become of its once great, proud self. The way things are going, the NFL will stand for the NATIONAL FLAG FOOTBALL LEAGUE before long. They will probably do away with the Super Bowl and replace it with a "Completion" Bowl for every single team so as to make sure that no one feels left out or bypassed.