Friday, July 8, 2011

Are Precious Metals Ready to Break Out?

By Raghu Gullapalli


Over the past eight days, the market is up 7% and seems ready for a pullback, especially on the news of poor non-farm payrolls. But one element of the market that seems to be gathering momentum right now is the precious metal segment, namely gold and silver.

Silver -- which, in the humble opinion of this trader, was being accumulated -- looks ready to break out above the $5 dollar range it's been bound to over the past two months.


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iShares Silver Trust (SLV), the exchange-traded fund, is approaching the reentry level set bySmartStops, at $36.71. This may prove to be a great setup in terms of risk reward, as short-term stop on SLV is $34.34 and the long-fterm stop is $33.79. The upside on this trade is substantial, as SLV may well seek out the highs from late April in the days to come. Part of my bullish bias on this trade comes from the fact that during this eight-week period of accumulation the ETF never dropped below its 210-day moving average.


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Gold, on the other hand, has been testing the $1550 level, and now it seems like the perfect storm of variables are brewing to push the metal through this level and possibly even to the $1600 year-end price target set by many market technicians and gurus.


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The depressing US jobs number, the downgrade of Portugal, and the increasing fears of a default by one of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) are the catalysts for this new drive up. The rest of Europe and their myriad of financial institutions have tremendous exposure to these countries' debt, and a single default by one of these countries could set off a domino effect. This would make Lehman’s collapse look like a tempest in a teapot. And in the midst of any storm, people flock to anchors to keep them secure. In these tumultuous markets that anchor is gold, and by proxy, silver.

SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) just like SLV has held strongly above its 210-day moving average and is also offering a good risk to reward trade. SmartStops has the short-term and long-term stops at $146.64 and $145.75 with a reentry into GLD at $151.86


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