James Turk: Learn from the Master of Chart Analysis

I'm proud to announce another fantastic opportunity for Screwtape readers today. James Turk, the spokesman of GoldMoney, seems to be the go-to person for commentary on the future of the gold market. In particular, he is known for his forensic interpretations of charts, in which he bravely and with great integrity puts to one side his own business interest of selling physical gold in order to objectively make the case that readers and listeners should buy physical gold.

So, in order that our readers may learn to profit more fully from Turk's incisive technical analysis, I will set out here some of the basic techniques that he uses, with a view to showing how trade-able conclusions can be reached that will ultimately lead to enormous gains in your personal wealth.

To make things easy, I'll break it down into the three possible cases: an upward-moving chart, a downward-moving chart, and a static chart.


How to interpret an upward-moving chart, à la Turk

This daily gold chart reflects the state of play on 27 February 2012, after gold had made a rather remarkable run from $1525 to $1780 in just two months.

On 27 February, Turk gave an interview to KWN entitled 'something big is about to happen to gold and silver.'

Turk's comments: "It is remarkable to see both metals hold their gains with no profit taking. Clearly, traders see something big is about to happen, and so do I... Right now I expect to see the purchasing power of gold to increase...The wind is at the back of the bulls in both the gold and the oil markets."

Apparent verdict: An upward chart is wildly bullish for gold.


How to interpret a downward-moving chart, à la Turk

This chart reflects the state of play on 25 September, after gold had been smashed down from its all-time-highs by 15% in three weeks. (NB the final candlestick, down to $1525 appeared after this date)

On 25 September, Turk gave an audio interview to KWN.

Turk's comments: "...Today's a good day for accumulating ... My guess is that going forward from here the safety element is going to be more important than the liquidity element ... Gold is the best safe haven of them all... so I would expect to see a sharp snap back in the precious metals' prices over the next week."

Apparent verdict: A plunging chart is wildly bullish for gold.


How to interpret a static chart, à la Turk

This chart represents the state of play on 20 April, after gold had been trading in a tight range for seven weeks.

On 20 April, Turk gave (...yes, you guessed it...) an interview to KWN.

Turk's comments: "The spring is already coiled, Eric, but it is being wound tighter and tighter by this relentless testing of support. For more than a month, gold and silver have been confined to a very narrow trading range ... The precious metals bend a little with these bouts of selling pressure being put on them, but they come right back, which is why I describe them like a spring being wound up. So when this spring starts to unwind, which it will, look out above."

Apparent verdict: A static chart is wildly bullish for gold.


Conclusion

So there you have it! It's easy when you know how. Praise be to James Turk for the benefits of his eternal charting wisdom. Having examined all three analyses, I'm now off to buy some gold (from GoldMoney, of course...)


13 comments:

hiptwist said...

Jeanne, tu es une jeune fille vilaine :-)

Anonymous said...

Salut Hiptwist

Ce n'est pas pour rien que les Bourgognes m'a brûlé, tu sais?

Mais il est bon de provoquer un peu de controverse de temps en temps quand même ... ;-)

A+

Edwardo said...

KWN and its "contributors" are an obvious infomercial outfit masquerading (rather unconvincingly) as a legitimate news outlet. Put less flatteringly, they are paper gold hucksters. End of story.

Anonymous said...

@Edwardo,

I hope you had chance to hear Screwtape World News' very own 'infomercial' here... ;-)

JdA

TFV said...

Very good and very true. Turk ... the guy calls for an event every two weeks that will take silver to over $60.00 ... Readers need to understand that he stands to profit if you buy silver from his organization.

Has anyone ever been son consistently wrong in their silver calls?

Good work on this piece.

Edwardo said...

JdA,

That was first rate entertainment. You done made me laugh. Now pardon me as I offer a few unsolicited suggestions to your fabulous cheese pumping network. If at all possible, please acquire a new mic for your broadcasts, as you're too good to let the Stilton side down as you perfectly parody a certain (precious) metal (meat) head network of dubious repute.

Anonymous said...

@Edwardo

Glad you liked the broadcast ;-)

Re the microphone: Yes, I know the sound quality wasn't great. I did actually go out and buy the best mike I could find (cost = $4; the Screwtape budget goes further into the red every day...sigh...) I live in a developing country, so getting my hands on quality electronics is sometimes far from easy, unfortunately. I hope to get some better kit next time I visit Europe.

I hope it didn't affect your enjoyment of the podcast too much, anyway.

JdA

KJ said...

Thanks for the laughs, again...funny cuz it's true.

Reading a book titled 'Netherlands' by Joseph O'Neill - a fictional account of a banker originally from Netherlands and transplanted in Manhattan and the trials and tribulations of life. In describing the work of an acquaintance, a column writer who much to his deteste is required to review hidden gem yet cheap restaurants in the city, he realizes it's all a show. He says:

"as I repeatedly went forth with him and began to understand the ignorance and contradictions and language difficulties with which he contended, and the doubtful sources of his information and the seemingly bottomless history and darkness out of which the dishes of New York emerge, the deeper grew my suspicion that his work finally consisted of minting or perpetuating and in any event circulating misconceptions about his subject and in this way adding to the endless perplexity of the world."

He goes about his career as an oil & gas analyst:

"similar misgivings, I should say, had begun to infect my own efforts at work. These efforts required me, sitting at my desk on the 22nd floor of a glassy tower, to express reliable opinions about the current and future valuation of certain oil and gas stocks..."

And later continues..."I felt like Vinay (the critic acquaintance), cooking up myths from scraps and peels of fact."

And then I thought of KWN, Sprott, Butler, Turk, etc. and their ongoing cooking up myths from scraps and peels of fact.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, all three directions are wildly bullish for gold. I own gold, I am bullish on gold but this kind of analysis sounds like fantasy to me.

SilverSurfer said...

@J

God it is about time that somebody is wildly bullish on Sarcasm!! BTW you can keep the "snake oil salesman"!

GM Jenkins said...

In fairness to Turk though, he always says "dollar cost average at the end of every month" on his KWN interviews that I've heard. I do recall he has an actual "trading page" on one of his websites ... I've never really looked at it closely it though - I'd be afraid if he ever said he was shorting gold, the earth would fall out of its orbit. He's been AWFUL with silver this year, but he actually made a great call last summer, when he forcefully said "this summer will be different" over and over (beyond his general positive outlook), to the point where I was wondering why he would risk his reputation like that, vs. being somewhat more ambivalent. I figured maybe he has access to movements in Goldmoney that tip him off. But yeah, his silver forecasts since then have disproven that hypothesis.

Anonymous said...

GM Jenkins,

wasn't there some article that said Turk no longer co-owned GoldMoney, but rather was employed by the GoldMoney Foundation which is a PR group paid by others? I don't remember all the details, so please correct me if you know better. But I remember that he was out of the daily GoldMoney operations.

Victor

Anonymous said...

@VtC

Indeed, that was in my GoldMoney article here. I said:

Mr Turk actually no longer owns GoldMoney, contrary to what many seem to think, but rather acts as their paid spokesperson and consultant. GoldMoney is in fact owned by a collection of investors including Doug Casey (Ed Steer's boss), David Tice, IAMGOLD (a large Canadian mining company) and our old friend, Eric Sprott. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about the ties between the silverogosphere, the big physical metal investors and GoldMoney and its spokesman, as that is a story for another day...

Actually, I must get around to writing that story one day...

JdA