| It seems the entire world is taking the last few days off, and so am I.
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| But with gold just setting a new record and flirting with a key breakout level, I’ve forced myself to come in out of the woods and offer you a few notes.
The following commentary comes from a Gold Newsletter Alert I just issued. (And considering the prospects for gold in 2024, I strongly urge you to subscribe to that service!)
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| An “Interesting” Year And Month
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| Gold’s ending up about 14% higher for the year, but it’s been anything but simple or easy. Despite what’s been arguably the harshest tightening cycle in central banking history, gold not only held its ground but managed to advance.
And, true to the form established over the last 12 months, it’s been an interesting close to 2023.
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| The chart above is not what I usually post from Kitco. However, it’s all that’s available thanks to a cyberattack against that website that the company is still trying to recover from after a week or so of being down. It’s fitting to consider this the cherry on top of the crazy year we’ve had.
Looking at the past month or so in the chart, we see the remarkable spike to $2,150 on that infamous Sunday evening earlier this month, and the slam that quickly followed on the Monday morning.
The result of that shove was a decline back below $2,000, and the typical calls for “one last dive before we soar” coming from various corners of the gold bug universe. It was not to be so, as gold began steadily rising, even as traders and speculators began to divert their attention to holiday parties and year-end positioning.
This stealth rally took us to an all-time record spot close of $2,089 this week, amid virtually zero fanfare or even mention in the gold forums, much less the mainstream financial media.
This rally, like those of the past few months, has been driven not by Western investors, but by central banks and Eastern buyers. We know this because the holdings in the primary tool of Western gold speculators, the GLD gold ETF, has been largely unresponsive to gold’s fall rally...and completely unresponsive to its most recent run higher.
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| As I’ve been saying in recent weeks, this means there’s tremendous buying power remaining in this bull market, especially when you consider that Western investors are typically trend-following. In addition, the central banks can print all the money they want to buy gold, and their appetite seems unlikely to wane anytime soon.
From a technical standpoint, it’s very simple: $2,100 or bust. If gold doesn’t get past that level, to establish a clear break from the previous rallies, this one will be quickly chalked up as just another failure — a quadruple peak, if you will.
The good news is that, from a fundamental standpoint, the odds favor gold breaking through $2,100 very soon. As I predicted a few months ago, the markets are now pricing in the inevitable Fed pivot — and considering its stellar performance while Powell & Co. were eagerly hiking rates, gold stands to be among the biggest beneficiaries when they finally begin the cutting cycle.
If you’ve been listening to my advice over the past year, you’re well positioned for this move. From a junior mining standpoint, the news wires have gone still as this year ends and investor attention is distracted. That will change next week, when I expect management teams will flood the feeds with news.
In short, it looks like we’ll have a very Happy New Year ahead, and we’re certainly ready for it.
On that note, let me wish you and your loved ones a very happy, healthy and wealthy 2024. I and my entire team sincerely appreciate the confidence you place in us and work hard all year long to deliver the best value in the industry for you.
We’ll continue to that over the coming year...and I expect it to be a very rewarding experience for all of us.
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| Brien Lundin
Publisher, Gold Newsletter
CEO, the New Orleans Investment Conference
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