2016: An Unpredictable and Wild Year

It’s hard to believe, but the final trading day of 2016 is upon us. 2016 has been chock-full of twists and turns, with a finale that even the best fiction writers could have never imagined.  

Brexit and Trump

Two major events occurred this year that took market analysts by surprise. On June 23, of this year, citizens of the United Kingdom headed to the polling booths to vote on a referendum as to whether or not Britain would leave the European Union. Just prior to last month’s presidential election, the vast majority of analysts and pollsters overwhelmingly predicted that Hillary Clinton would become the 45^th president of the United States. A victory by Donald Trump was considered to be an extremely improbable outcome.

In both instances, the pollsters and market analysts got it wrong. Not only did the referendum pass, but also Donald Trump was elected the 45^th President of the United States. Even more astonishing was the prediction that an upset in either case would lead to a sharp selloff in global equities with safe haven assets moving sharply higher.

Sometimes Truth is Stranger than Fiction

In both instances the immediate knee-jerk reaction was exactly as predicted by market technicians.  However, almost no one predicted that those trends would only last days, in the case of the Brexit referendum vote, or hours, in the case of the presidential election. Within three days of the Brexit vote, and within eight hours of the presidential election, global equities rallied and safe haven assets move sharply lower.

Gold Forecast 2017

We have entered a period in time when traditional fundamentals may not explain or predict future outcomes with any degree of reliability. The only thing for certain in 2017 is that nothing is for certain. With that in mind, today’s video report will be our 2017 forecast for gold.

Hopefully it will be more on the mark than recent predictions.

Most importantly, I want to wish everyone a joyful and blessed New Year, in which you experience health, happiness and of course, good trading,