Our immediate outlook for gold turned cautious yesterday when the February Comex contract pulled back sharply from within 40 cents of a Hidden Pivot target at 1227.90. The target was reiterated in an analysis that went out Wednesday night, as follows: “Bulls should have been heartened to see gold so resilient on a day when the dollar stood firm. The payoff appears to be coming this evening, with a bullish thrust by the February futures above the day’s range. I still like 1227.90 as a minimum upside target, or perhaps 1230.00 if any higher, but we should turn cautious when that range is reached. It seems likely to show some stopping power, but if none is discernible that would sharpen the focus on the 1337.00 target given here earlier.”  

Subscribers had been alerted to the possibility of a tradable top at 1227.90  before the futures first poked above 1200.  With yesterday’s thrust to within a hair of our number, we are now focused on an unachieved target of larger degree at 1337 (as noted above).  That is our minimum upside objective for the next 10-14 days, but as is our custom, we won’t consider it a done deal until certain technical benchmarks are met. The first would be a successful test of support at exactly 1198.80, a little less than $3 beneath the correction low as of 7:30 p.m. EST Thursday. That number is a Hidden Pivot, and it is sufficiently compelling to imply that it will provide a tradable bounce if and when the February Comex contract touches it. If there is no bounce, however, it would be akin to the groundhog seeing his shadow : six more weeks of winter, or something like it, for this correction in gold. 

A Number to Watch: 1198.80 

In recent months, gold’s corrections have been relatively shallow, consistently failing to reach their Hidden Pivot targets. This is a bullish sign, and it is why Rick’s Picks has been bullish as all get-out during gold’s blitzkrieg thrust above $1000. But we have been cautious at each rally target, since you never can tell when a bull market is going to go into a nasty corrective dive. The logical time for a correction to start is immediately after the futures have kissed a Hidden Pivot resistance, as they did yesterday. Will this correction be the one that shakes out the excess of confidence that has accumulated among gold investors as precious metal prices have soared?  We’ll be better able to answer this question when we have seen February Gold interact with the 1198.80 Hidden Pivot flagged above.  (Bulletin:  As we went to press at 9:00 p.m., the correction had gone as low as 1201.40.) 

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