Gold Rally stalls at $1280

Strong buying overnight in the early part of the Asian trading session took gold into a region of formidable chart resistance near the $1,280 level. At that point sellers entered sensing that the bulls were booking profits and prices needed a breather.

With the nervousness surrounding last week's emerging markets currency/credit crisis subsiding somewhat, gold ran out of reasons to keep moving vertical. If you notice, the Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc, the beneficiaries of last week's rush to safety plays, are weaker today. Also, the S&P 500 is trading higher while the US Dollar has managed to obtain a firm bid. With the VIX moving lower as well, it appears that for the moment, the market is less concerned about the emerging market issues that plagued it last week. How long this lasts is anyone's guess but for the immediate moment, gold is being sold and stocks are being bought once again.

If anything, last week's price action in response to the emerging markets reinforces in my mind the notion that gold MUST HAVE SOME SORT OF CONFIDENCE SHATTERING event(s) to push it into a sustained uptrend. The recent move up has consisted of a great deal of short covering and while there has indeed been some fresh buying, that has been largely outnumbered by speculative short covering.

As I have written many times here at this site, short covering rallies can be quite ferocious and oftentimes spectacular, but by their very nature, they tend to fizzle out as quickly as they start. Markets require the application of THRUST/FORCE to escape the downward pull of gravity and that necessitates SUSTAINED money flows ( new buying ). If that new buying is lacking, gravity will win out and price will back down.

When it comes to gold that means any sort of credit/currency crisis must be one which escalates in the minds of traders/investors. Such escalation fans more fear and nervousness and that will drive money into gold. Given the current state of low inflationary expectations, it will take this sort of strong emotion to keep those flows active. At the first sign of stability or easing of tensions, gold will tend to surrender its gains with the more recent pattern of buying stocks/selling commodities coming to the ascendancy once again.

What this translates to when it comes to technical price action is selling at resistance zones. Gold thus far has managed to plow through several layers of overhead chart resistance and in the process turned the daily chart positive ( the weekly remains decidedly bearish however). With traders looking for reasons to sell rallies, these resistance zones on the daily chart will take on more importance. Any hesitation by the bulls to extend the rally at these zones will bring in selling as very short term bulls bail out with any paper profits that they might have while longer term oriented bears look to re-enter on the short side.

It is always interesting to watch the battle lines being formed on the charts. Right now dips are being bought in gold based on the improving daily chart picture while rallies tend to stall - at least temporarily - at these resistance zones. Translating to numbers - resistance is the zone near $1280 with support being provided by the zone near $1260-$1258.

I am watching to see what gold does if equities start moving lower once again and particularly if the Dollar cannot hold any gains. I will provide an update later in the session as the direction towards the pit close becomes evident.