Gold Price Close Today : 856.1
Gold Price Close Last Friday: 887.2
Change: -31.1 or -3.5%
Silver Price Close Today : 16.381
Silver Price Close Last Friday: 16.85
Change: -49.90 cents or -2.8%
US Dollar Index Today: 73.514
US Dollar Index Last Friday: 72.668
Change: 0.846 or 1.2%
It's more than a little odd and bewildering that both SILVER and GOLD PRICES have been correcting for more time than the 2004 and 2006 crashes, but so far at less price loss. In other words, the correction ought to be complete in time, but not in price. This jumps to the conclusion that 2008's correction has finished, and will be shallower in price than 2004 and 2006.
By way of comparison, the gold price has dropped 15.4% so far from its 18 March 2008 high, against 12.4% in 2004 and 21.9% in 2006. The silver price as of 1 May had dropped 21.6% from its high, but in 2004 dropped 32.8% and 35.4% in 2006.
Trying to mesh this with the metals' seasonal patterns leads to more bewilderment. Usually metals drop into end-June/July for a low after a high in May, then make another high in October/November. Sometimes, just to mess with your mind, they peak & trough in the opposite seasons. This year they peaked in mid-March(huh?) and looks like they will trough by mid-May, end-May latest. Will they then rise into the summer, the usual seasonal low? Or will they trade sideways until August and then begin climbing?
About the only near-certainty here is that this correction will have ended by May 31. Mercy -- it may have already bottomed. Proof of that will only come, however, by a successful test of the lows so far.
Now everybody has his head turned down, so what are the maximum lows we might expect? US$785 on gold and $13.29 on silver. But I've been through this enough times to know that bending over looking for a bottom you'll get a crick in your neck that puts a crick in your trading. You are looking for a bottom so hard that you miss it when it comes, looking for one further down. That's silly. Silver & gold are in a bull market. What if you buy today and they drop another 10%? The bull market's rising tide will bail you out. I've worried and vexed myself about every one of these drops since 1999, and now the difference between $4.05 and $4.50, or US$342 and US$310 seems like no difference at all.
Of course, this sort of weather also brings out the really gigantic croakers. They're now singing that the deflationary depression is coming that will take gold down to $35 again and silver to 25 cents, etc., etc. and the bull market in silver and gold has ended. Well, suum quique, to each his own, but I doubt it. The metals bull market began in 2001. It won't end before 2014 or 2015, if then. Stay with your positions, add to them while metals are correcting and low, and shut your ears to the croakers like Ulysses shut his crews' ears to the Sirens. His own he left open, but he tied himself to the mast.
STOCKS are rallying, and the Dow industrials should carry to 14,000. Dow Transports made a new all-time high on 30 April, and whether the Industrials confirm that or not, for now that fuels stock optimism. Rallying stocks helps silver, so don't complain, just don't get suckered into buying or keeping stocks. Stock rally seems destined to carry into summer, again, differing from the usual flat summer pattern.
The US DOLLAR INDEX is just a-rallyin' and a-rallyin', picking up all the easy money off the inflexible & unwary shorts. Look for this rally to work its way toward 77 before it ends, but it won't hurt silver or gold too much. They've already established themselves as the alternative currencies to all fiat national currencies.
Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.
- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
"Buy Silver and Gold Coins at the Best Prices"
The-MoneyChanger.com
To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate in a bubble, primary trend way down.
