Gold

In spite of an assist from a strong euro/weaker dollar, which would push gold prices higher, the yellow precious metal Is down today in regular trading.

It’s not much of a drop, but it is a sign of further uncertainty in gold, as it seeks true direction.

Unusually, gold took its cues from a powering-up U.S. economy. This at first seems counterintuitive.

Gold pulled back today in the face of stronger equities, a solid rise in the dollar and new weakness in oil. It is a good time to remind ourselves, though, that gold is up 2-1/4% in the last month. We’re going to have to ascertain where our trends lie for the remainder of the year and into the New Year.

The bulls took command today, as the moment of truth about the direction of gold came to hand after a long, slow holiday in the U.S. Part of the bullish momentum was provided by a faltering equities market, although those recovered somewhat in the late-afternoon.

Two currents were pushing gold prices around today.

The first, and most important for us in the long term is that a raft of data from the U.S. economy came in shaky at best. Consumer sentiment, housing and manufacturing declines sent red flags flying, raising concerns that the world's biggest economy is losing momentum in the final few months of 2014.

Third quarter U.S. GDP was revised upward to show that the economy expanded by 3.9%. Consumer sentiment, however, fell during November. These two data points seems to be contradictory, when in fact, behind the consumer’s thinking lies an unfortunate reality.

After trying to hold the $1200 level, gold has shied back and is hovering right below that psychological mark. The continued strength in equities has helped limit gold’s upside, although silver, due to industrial factors, found a tiny bit of power – well, a spark, is more like it.

Yes, that’s what they’re called…