Friday, October 09, 2009

Is the Gold Breakout for Real?

Gold ETF GLD recently broke out over $100, an area that has provided major "round number resistance" the past two times GLD tried to breakout.

When a "major" ETF or market leader breaks out over a number like $100 after basing around that area for a significant amount of time, I consider it an automatic buy. Thus, I'll be entering GLD (or one of the leveraged gold ETFs) on a pullback.

However, there is a concern that could lead to a "failed breakout". Notice that RSI on the 3 year weekly chart shows a negative divergence. On a strong breakout, we want to see RSI breaking out to new highs along with price. Here, we see that RSI was much stronger back in early 2008, the first time GLD attempted to break $100.

Because of this I will not take a big position. I'll take an average size position on a pullback to around $101-102, with my stop under $100. If the breakout does fail, I'll be ready to reverse course and short GLD. Failed breakouts often lead to big gains as short entries.

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