Gold’s rebound and short-term discourse from silver

While these indications suggest a rebound, the underlying trend for gold remains firmly down. For renewed faith in an uptrend, the short-term rebound will need to maintain a decent follow through and close above the $1230 level, as this would mark the return of significant higher highs in the market, the first building block of an uptrend. 

However, until this situation arises, we continue to respect the downtrend and look for an opportunity to trade in line with it.

The current rebound resembles a bear flag formation, which is considered a precursor to further decline. These patterns are highlighted in red on the chart below and show a weak move up after an aggressive move down, alluding to the underlying momentum as remaining with the bears.

As my colleague, Joshua Mahony, points out, there is also a larger double-top formation (large 'M-shaped' price action above $1218) warning of the potential for further downside in gold over the long term. With all of this in mind, a move to $1194 is favoured from a technical perspective despite the current rebound underway. Traders following the near-term downtrend might consider using a close above $1230 as the failure level. 

Another opportunity to consider might be the relationship between gold and silver at present.

The chart below shows a relative price chart of gold (red) and silver (black) in the same window and a ratio of their relationship in the window below (blue). While the price movements between the two commodities are usually similar, a mean of that relationship shows a short-term, larger than usual deviation from this mean at around 6%.

If the assumption is that this relationship should revert back to normality or it’s short-term mean, one might consider the pair trade or arbitrage opportunity in taking a long position on silver against a short position on gold, looking for a net return of around 6% excluding costs.