A short week this week. Gold has not traded on the Comex since November 27, when the spot future price closed at its lowest level since October 28 - $US 316.80
By Friday, November 29, the PM London Gold fix had improved to $US 319.05. Had that price been reflected on the Comex, Gold would have fallen $US 1.80 on the week.
For a interesting feature of Comex Gold trading over the three days to November 27, please see our main Gold Commentary this week, specifically the table which gives the actual course of trade, including daily volume and open interest. Note the VERY high volume, culminating on November 26 when 104,570 contracts were traded. Note also that despite all this activity, the open interest figure hardly moved at all for the week, declining a grand total of 230 contract (166,600 to 166,370). Unfortunately ;-), the Commitments of Traders report has not yet been updated. It will make for fascinating reading when it is.
Here are the relative performances of $US Gold, the $US Index, and the Dow since Gold broke above $US 300 on March 27:
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If Gold's gain had exactly mirrored the loss on the $US index since March 27, Gold would have closed on November 29 at $US 333.80.
You can see here that the "projected" Gold price, if Gold had proportionally reacted to $US weakness since March 27, it would have long since breached the $US 330 level. $US 330 is, of course, the "glass ceiling" which has been in place on the $US Gold price ever since it hit its 2002 high ($US 327.80 spot future basis) on June 4.
Here's another perspective - a comparison between Gold's 2002 low and its present price and the $US index 2002 high and its present "price". All data is on CLOSING levels:
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On the daily bar chart, remains below both (10 and 20 day) moving averages this week before closing back above them on Friday's late bounce. On the weekly bar chart, the weekly intraday low for Gold has now been "flatlining" for a month just above the shorter-term (20 week) moving average. The point and figure chart is down by one "O" from its position last week. It will turn up again on a spot future close of $US 320 or higher, $0.90 above Gold's Friday PM fix in London.
And finally, here's one final perspective, comparing Gold's 2002 high closing level set on June 4 with its level today.
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Gold's loss since its June 4 2002 high is once again nearly as big as the loss on the $US index over the same period. If the action on spot future $US Gold had "mirrored" the action on the $US index since June 4, then Gold would be 4.19% ABOVE its June 4 level of $US 327.80. That would put Gold at $US 341.50.
This week, there has been a HUGELY expanded volume of trading on the Comex with a minor change in the spot future price and almost no change at all in the open interest. This is a very good trick, we will see how much longer it can be performed successfully.