At the risk of sounding like a gold cynic, here's yet another reason why gold might not perform so well in the near future: It's technical chart is looking lousy.
Bespoke Investment Group pointed out on Wednesday that gold – which has dipped to $1,367 (U.S.) an ounce from its recent nominal record high of $1,420 – has fallen below its 50-day moving average. That marks the first time gold has fallen below the trend line in 100 trading days.
"This ends the third longest streak of trading above its 50-day that the commodity has had since 2000," Bespoke said on its blog. "The prior two streaks ended back in 2002 (124 trading days) and 2008 (143 trading days)."
If you check out the charts on the Bespoke site, you can see that gold took some time to recover after falling below its 50-day moving average on those previous two occasions.
Of course, for hardcore gold enthusiasts – and we know from the comments section that they're around, in big numbers – gold's recent setback is an excellent opportunity to load up.
David Berman