Russia and Gold

I went out for coffee and when I got back, Microsoft had riddled windows with spyware, a deadly virus was released on the world, Australian police used drones to enforce lockdowns, Antarctica had heatwaves, plastic became a plague, artificial intelligence is ruling our lives and Russia invaded Ukraine result-of-which we're on the verge of WW3. Hoorah!

It is worth attempting to scrape some value from the extreme situation we find ourselves in. Ukraine 2022 provide a unique opportunity to stress-test one of the bigger precious metal theories from the recent decade - the notion that a sudden massive demand for real physical gold would collapse the western banking system.*

Being immune from direct experimentation has allows this concept to thrive and mutate over the years. Here are some of the big variants:

- The 'paper gold' derivatives system would explode

- The United States Dollar would 'collapse'
- The major bullion banks would be crashed

- The Freegold era would be ushered in
- The COMEX would bust from individuals standing for delivery

This myth is officially busted. Here is the test in all it's simplicity: all Putin needs to do is to demand gas and oil payments in physical gold and hey-presto the economic system of his adversary would be on its knees without even firing a shot. Russia has the means, the motive and the opportunity - surely this apparently very-obvious vulnerability would have been exploited already if it were real? Or maybe Putin didn't get the memo on 'buy silver, crash JP Morgan'?

I raised an eyebrow when reading they had 'pegged' the Rouble to Gold starting 28th March 2022 giving the initial impression they were selling energy for gold using the Rouble as a proxy.  As I understand it, the arrangement wasn't a true gold standard because exchanging Roubles for central bank gold at a fixed price wasn't a feature - and in any case by 7th April 2022 Russia's central bank ended the fixed price arrangement so whatever they were experimenting with ended nearly as abruptly as it began.  The price of gold showed nothing noteworthy during that time period (my highlight).

In March, six Russian gold refineries had their accreditation temporarily suspended from The London Bullion Association (LBMA) which means they can't sell newly refined bars into the London market however 'Gold and silver bars produced by the refineries while they were accredited remain valid to trade, according to LBMA rules', which is why Russian bars are still present in the GLD bar listing. At first I thought this might choke the physical gold supply but article explains it away: "Bankers and traders have said the removal of Russian refiners would have little impact on the market and Russian metal would still find buyers in places such as China and the Middle East". Quite, since Russia's supply is quoted at ~330 tonnes/year. No disruption so far - could it be the physical gold market is robust?

Personally I still favour the idea of Freegold - having Gold as the ultimate neutral global reserve asset ** floating against all other currencies would limit the ability of governments to wage war and reduce their capacity for totalitarian measures against the general public. But until that happens we owe it to ourselves to abandon childish mythology in our understanding of the world.

---

* Market 'manipulation' is a separate topic - in 2022 we know regular collusion and manipulation of futures markets by the big players are very real and are well documented thanks to the myriad fines issued (link).

** At some point in history the US Dollar will no longer be the global reserve currency.  On this topic I recently came across an exposition by Ray Dalio (43 minute animated summary of his book - link).

$1,081 gold bottom?

We've recently been updated by GM Jenkins on the 10 year USTs priced in silver chart, notably the ratio hitting its upper channel line at around the 1.50 level. GM is expecting a final lower low for gold shortly, before the trend changes back to a bull market.

I decided to see if the gold price was Fibonacci-friendly, and the chart below plots the key retracement levels from the bottom back in 1999 through to its peak in late 2011.

Here's the chart (I manually added the 23.6% level at $1,522):

Who knows what will happen, but the fib levels seem significant, so I'll be saving my pennies to buy the bottom at around $1,081, and I reckon it's coming within the next 5 weeks, in the midst of a liquidity crisis as stock markets take a dive.

I'm not expecting the 61.8% fib level to be hit.

Quick Analysis on Sticky Gold (chart)

A very quick chart for Gold price (in USD/oz) to demonstrate the gold doldrums. For those who debate Gold's proper value : the market says it is fairly priced at around $1,200/oz. The graph below shows the sample of the mid-point price points for this year, expressed as a percentage of all price samples. The underlying data is for XAU_USD currency pair, from Oanda's trading platform, analysis of all M1 intervals available for calendar year 2015 to date.

$30 range around $1200/oz is highlighted in yellow.
Data points are for Jan - May 2015, from Oanda.

Martin Armstrong's Tense

Hello again.

I read Martin Armstrong's blog every day. Much as I grimace at his spelling and grammar standards, I do enjoy his insights and his passion about the world's troubles and what lies ahead. I recognise that he's running a business, and has some 'product' to sell, so a pinch of salt is sometimes required, but in my view he's forgotten more about the markets, the world and its history, and cycles, than most of us will ever know, and that includes all of the so-called experts and amateurs that write at length online these days.

So, I was interested in a paragraph he wrote very recently regarding one of my favourite assets: gold.

Here's the paragraph to which I refer:

Gold has been turning back down as it has lost much of its luster among broader base investors. In fact, there are people now starting to say gold is dead since it has declined in the face of monetization by the Fed and the ECB. The wider view is the gold rally was all hype and it will never rally. This too is what I warned MUST take place BEFORE you get the low. We had to “shake the tree” and get them all out.

Mr Armstrong has been vociferous in recent years in his criticisms of the 'gold promoters' out there, who fail to appreciate how the gold price moves in line with short and longer-term cycles. He produced a timing report on the precious metals last year (I think) and sold this to anyone interested, and it contained his system's key turning points for prices, and he made it clear that lower prices were ahead for much of the past few years. A good call for sure. More recently he has appeared to soften his tone towards gold somewhat.

I happened to notice one key word in the section I have copied above:

'This too is what I warned MUST take place BEFORE you get the low. We had to “shake the tree” and get them all out.'

Unusually, he has switched from using the present or future tense to using the past tense in relation to ridding the market of the short-term bull players and allowing a bottom in price to form (now do you see what a great play on words this blog title is?).

So, I wonder, is the gold price past its lows? Are we in a new stealth bull market already, but no one has noticed? Time will tell, but like many of you reading this who have bought more gold recently, I reckon the past 2 years will turn out to have been one of the great buying opportunities we shall ever see for any asset class during our lifetimes.

If the long-term interest rate and inflation cycles turn in due course (next year or two, after a deflationary scare), then another gold-related asset (its miners) could also be set for a spectacular 20 years or so. Have a look at this long-term Barron's Gold Mining Index chart, which I have split into (fairly rough) sections. Sadly the BGMI chart doesn't go back quite as far as I would like, so we have to make do with what we have, but it would seem that for the period following the Great Depression, right through until inflation/recessions started to appear in the mid 1960s, the gold miners did very little. Then from 1965 until 1982, the miners had a huge run, along with gold, both up by around 2400%.

It seems inevitable to me that the 32 year interest rate cycle will turn within a couple of years, and we'll be back in a period much like the 1970s, with rolling currency crises, very little real growth, and a lack of faith in central banks or governments to do much about it (at last). So, interest rates will rise, asset prices will rise as money seeks something real as a hedge, and as we saw in the 70s, gold and its miners could be the best investment to hold for the long run. If gold rises to c. $2,500 through the end of the current cycle, and then does another 2400% run in the following 16-18 years, you'd be looking at a gold price of $60,000 an ounce. And of course a very similar rise in the share price of its miners, just like in the 65-82 period. Then, in 2034, it would perhaps be time to move away from gold? Ah, who cares, I'll be an old man by then, we'll review it all again nearer the time.

In closing, I had an interesting chat last year whilst on holiday with a geologist who works for a multi-billion dollar family office (brewing wealth), and they'd just completed on a tiny £100 million deal to buy a gold mine in Africa (I forget the country). I asked her what would be the likely situation with the mine if the gold price were to experience a sustained and significant price increase over a number of years, were they worried about the local government repossessing the mine? She explained that these days most mining deals have a profit-sharing clause to take care of that, so everyone gains on the upside, but the capital risk is solely with the investor if prices fall. The deal, interestingly, was part-funded by Kuwaiti investors.

Good luck.

Edit (24/5/15)

I had an email from Nick Laird (Sharelynx.com) today. He has kindly put together a longer-term version of his BGMI chart shown above. The chart below uses Homestake Mining from 1890 through to 1925 & then Homestake & Dome through to 1938, when it joins the BGMI index until 1945, when it then joins the SP Gold index. Thanks Nick.

Here's the chart:

The chart proved my earlier guess, that after the 1933 dollar devaluation against gold, the miners entered a long period of consolidation, from 1933 through to 1965. But they delivered a quick 1000% gain from around 1925 through to 1933.

It is apparent that the 'gold recapitalisation' period was twice as long in the 60s-70s, with a gain in gold and its miners that was more than twice as large as in the 30s. Does that offer any clues for what lies ahead in the 2020s-2030s? The world's debt bubble hasn't got any smaller has it? We will see in due course.

Calling my bet with Turd [UPDATED]

Hullo, Screwtape types. It's been a long time. Did you miss me?

So, those of you with long memories will recall my post at the end of 2012, setting out the case for gold being about to enter a serious bear market. At the time, gold was at $1672/oz (woah - remember those days..?) and had put in rather a stinker of a year.

I pointed out the simple, almost trite, fact that anyone - ANYONE - who had advised you to buy gold during 2012 had been wrong. Not maliciously wrong, perhaps, but wrong anyway. And I thought that this fact should arm the future readers of the silverogosphere in 2013 when considering their next steps.

Gold and International Trade Settlement (Part 1)

(A New Gold Supra-Theory – Post 1.)

 

I realize that this topic sounds utterly boring. But if you think that gold has a role to play in a new international monetary and financial system (IMFS) this topic should be of the utmost importance to you. There is more than one theory about international trade. If one particular theory is correct then gold better not give up its day job just yet because it’s not going to get the trade settlement gig in a new IMFS.

A concept called “balance of trade” or “national balance of trade” is central to this discussion. This term appears to have been coined around 1615 and it started a food fight among economic thinkers that's still in full swing. There are several competing theories about the drivers of trade and the appropriate objectives of international trade.

 

Any attempt to examine this topic is complicated by the intervention of monarchs or governments and their bureaucracies down through the years. However, I think we can distil a few key themes from the debates about this subject over the centuries. The classical economists believed that free trade served human welfare and that imbalances are naturally self-correcting. The way this was done was through the prices+-specie-flow mechanism and refraining from intervention in free trade.[1]

 

(The word “specie” implies gold and/or silver to many people. This view is erroneous. Specie should be read simply as ‘money’ or ‘capital’. With money as a subset of capital provided the money is accepted in exchange for capital goods. [2])

 

Another perspective (labelled “mercantilism”) holds that the national balance of trade should be viewed as the sum total of all of the merchants cash tills in the country. The false implication this conveys is that the mercantilists sole aim was to obtain a cash surplus (or profit like a merchant) from trade. The actual aim of many of the mercantilists was to obtain a surplus of imports over exports. A money surplus represented a future goods surplus. Some of the mercantilists proposed controlling both exports and imports in order to ensure that there were enough goods available within the borders of their nation to enrich the lives of everyone who lived there.

 

On at least one issue the classical economists and the mercantilists were on the same page – viewing international trade as an indirect exchange of goods-for-goods mediated by money. Goods that contributed to human welfare and wealth (in its broadest sense). Money (bullion for “the bullionists”) stored the surplus purchasing power. The real issue between these two camps was balanced trade versus creating a deliberate imbalance in your own favour which the classical economists viewed as self-defeating.

 

In recent times the view has been propounded that a country running a trade deficit is unproductive and countries running surpluses are productive. Surplus producers are lauded and the citizens of countries with trade deficits are derided as net-consumers. The implications are that deficit = lazy and surplus = industrious. But kindly note: Countries who run trade surpluses must export capital and countries with deficits must import capital – "balance sheets must balance" as the Minskyite economist Michael Pettis is fond of saying.

For a long time I viewed this solely as a win-lose deal. Trade deficit countries are “forced to sell off the farm” to the surplus countries. But eventually I realized that there are a few problems with this lazy vs industrious and winner vs loser perspective which I’ll briefly summarize for you. The biggest problem is the existence of a theory that the capital flows occur first and lead to the trade deficits. If you subscribe to this theory you could use it to support the claim that the deficit countries like the USA are in a sense the "victims" of the surplus countries excessive saving and lack of domestic consumption.

 

Secondly citizens of a country running a trade deficit can be highly productive and industrious but obtain prices for their products which are too low to generate sufficient revenue to pay for their imports. (I suppose the rejoinder might be that these people in deficit-land were stupid in their decisions about what to produce and it serves them right. Personally I think the return of serve on that stroke might be a sizzler.)

 

Thirdly a country could have a surplus of capital absorbing investment opportunities for which there is insufficient capital available locally. If this was the case then it could make sense to adopt policies that encourage a surplus of capital imports rather than trying to "save" up enough money to finance them domestically. Figuratively speaking that “deficit” country could run an “export” surplus of in-bound foreign direct investments (FDI).

 

Now we come to an important issue that needs to be addressed by those of us who believe that a gold-based IMFS is in the pipeline. In the capital flow trade model I just outlined there is no need for so much as a single gram of gold to flow in order to settle the trade “imbalance” implied by running a current account deficit (CAD). There is NO imbalance for a flow of gold to balance.

[1] I changed the text from "prices+costs" to this - ‘prices+-specie-flow mechanism’ - to reflect the fact it’s influenced by more factors than prices and costs alone and to give this mechanism my version of its formal title which is the "price-specie-flow mechanism".

[2] Hat tip to 'DP'. The way I expressed it originally implied that money and capital are two different things.

Bank of England Vault Floor Layout (updated)

The Bank of England Virtual Tour is pretty neat - specifically the 360 degree rotatable picture of the main gold vault. 'Crazy to do from a security perspective', so interesting to consider the need for transparency was greater than the need for secrecy. The website/app is great fun for anyone liking shiny things.

I wanted to explore a few additional details, create a historical record for posterity and completely debunk the 1,300 tonnes of leased gold idea before it gains too much traction in the metals space. Primarily though, the main purpose of this article is to highlight extra detail - insofar as it helps reduce the social distance between us and that big stash of gold.

Screwtales: Fed Gold and German Tanks

Satisfied that GM Jenkins has the skinny on gold price movements, I've been busy in the other cellar trying to finish a new database article. A few readers asked me to look at the National Geographic documentary titled 'Inside Americas Money Vault' (link link), specifically regarding bars shown in the first section of the clip - Bron Suchecki added a few more observations which made a small article worthwhile so here it is, for anyone interested.

With the new clip, we attempted the same as the recent 'Bob Pisani Revisited' article - to see if the database can tell a story about the gold bars we see on the camera. This is normally cut and dried - there is either a match in the data or there is not. There are plenty of great visuals in the clip, at high resolution.

Bob Pisani Revisited (a fresh look)

I recently completed a batch of data importing for the database project (link), which cleared a backlog of files waiting to be processed. The completion is a huge milestone because it finally provides the ability to search (almost instantly) for gold bars across 18 different funds, in records covering the last 18 months. So while Screwtape Files was the FIRST blog to identify Bob Pisani's mystery bar ZJ6752, we now return to the study armed with more information.

The goal remains the same ... "use the database to identify gold bars that we see in the media, for additional narrative". This gives us a larger picture for virtually no extra effort, because the hard work of building the index is already done.

Bob Pisani and me,
from the filmed-but-
never-aired documentary:
"Prosimians in the Attic".

First, a quick history for those who haven't encountered the ZJ6752 story - CNBC's Bob Pisani presented a small series on gold in 2011. We're interested in serial numbers for bars that appear on camera. I studied the clips to find more serial numbers than just ZJ6752. These are the video references (in order most interesting to least), with the ones I've taken images from, in bold. Note that the only high-resolution footage I could find were the advertisements on youtube.

1. "Gold Rush: The Mother Lode" (4.55) cnbc link
2. "The King of Refineries" (4.28) cnbc link
3. "Gold Mine" (1.56) cnbc link
4. "Gold Rush: The Bullion Trail" (4.11) cnbc link
5. High Definition Advert for the Series # 1 (0.31) youtube link
6. High Definition Advert for the Series # 2 (0.38) youtube link

Chasing Chinese Bars

Eight months worth of Julius Baer Precious Metals Fund data was successfully loaded into the database this week. Their vaults contain ~ 8,902 gold bars so we thought we might be able to catch a glimpse of some bars of Chinese Origin - no luck. Ever since Dominic Frisby talked about GLD having no Chinese-refined bars link, I've been wondering where and when they might show up.

GLD is the world's biggest repository of gold bars, if you remember the 'country of refiner origin' breakdown, this is the most recent snapshot (data is from a specific document issue - not an aggregate). I have also included the graphic to remind that we're only interested in the 400-oz variety.

Jeanne d'Arc jumps the shark

My name is Bond. Jeanne de Bond.

One of my central theses (as opposed to one of GM's ventral faeces, which is another matter entirely) is that in an inflationary environment, gold is really just not that great a hedge. Currently, I own no gold (paper or solid), and I make no apology for that: it's neither (a) necessary, nor (b) profitable. Shoot me.

I don't really enjoy philosophical debates about gold emerging as the new real money, or it being liberated from its chains to enrich a few sharp billionaires and web-obsessed PM market followers. It's not that I'm utterly humourless - oh no - I enjoy spluttering into my tea at the latest silver fiction splurged out onto the silverogosphere as much as anyone, and I like to think of myself now as some sort of connoisseur. It's just that when it comes to gold, the level of debate is just so... how can I put this?... so, un-rock and roll. It's a bit of wealth protection here, a bit of cheat the gubbernment there; a bit of inflation hedge here, a bit of doomsday over there. I just can't grind with that kind of solipsistic navel gazing: Louis has just given me my pocket money, and I want to make it worth more - now!

The Bill Murphy wager update

This is the correspondence between Bill and I regarding the wager. 
According to bill gold should be at $3200 shortly. Below is the original post which I sent bill in an email. See linky for original post


To: elpresidente@gata.org
From: Louiscypher
cc: GATA
Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Dear Bill,

I read your piece via Zerohedge.com yesterday and 

was pretty much in shock. I assumed your account 

got hacked and some rogue hacker is now running 

around twitting, twatting, skit skating, spamming and flambéing with your good names. 

However, it's been 24 hours and there are no denials so I guess you guys really, actually expect the price of Gold to double in the next 90 days.

Now seeing as you have put this out there I'll assume you are going to buy some leaps and make some paper on this. 

Indeed (as newsletter writers like to say), as you are entirely comfortable having the general public make similar bets I have a proposal for you guys.

I will bet 1 Oz of 24K gold US mint issued coin that it will not double. I will also eat your shorts if it does double in the the next 90 days. If however it does not double in the next 90 days then you will give me a 1 Oz 24 K Gold coin issued by the US mint. 

Now I'll understand if you guys want someone to hold the coins and shorts in escrow. May I suggest the boys at ZH for the Gold and JPM for the shorts?

Sincerely,

Louis D. Cypher

Read Bill's reply below

Gold as Greed

It's tough for people where I live. I don't mean Glaswegian council estate or LA 'Project' tough. I mean proper tough.

The child malnutrition rate (moderate and severe) here is at 27%, literacy at 47 and 31% (male and female, respectively), and 51% of the population is below the international poverty line of $1.25 per day. A recent rebellion, followed quickly by a coup d'etat and a saturation of the north by Islamist terrorists, has exacerbated this poverty-stricken country's existing problems, and created a new crisis of 400,000 refugees and internally displaced people. Now all the people have to look forward to is war and international military intervention.

Corruption, an eroding terrain, and the hangover from decades of colonial rule, have conspired to make this country the 12th poorest in the world.

This is perhaps all the more surprising given that this nation is the third biggest producer of gold in Africa.

A study of PM investors' psychology, in one easy chart

One of the (very few) criticisms made about me on the silverogosphere is that I can be a little wordy at times.


So, without further ado, here is a study of PM investors' psychology in one easy chart, and one easy YouTube clip.


Thank you.

Fun with Fibs

The silverogosphere is in an orgy of self-congratulation following the Chairman of the Federal Reserve's commitment on Thursday to provide $40 billion per month in monetary stimulus (a.k.a QE3) to buy mortgage debt.

In some respects, the cheerleaders merit their day in the sun. I was certainly personally surprised that more QE was actually announced prior to the presidential election, and utterly flabbergasted that Mr Benanke went so far as to essentially commit to stimulus without an end date. Although any sane observer [amongst whom I hope to be able to count myself, although years of being force-fed crystal meth by GM's harem of harpies has somewhat weakened an already tentative grasp on reality - Ed.] has appreciated for some time that the fiscal debt can only be solved practically through one of three broad policies (dollar devaluation; default; mass confiscation from citizens), it still came as something as a surprise to me that the Fed would be so explicit about their choice of option 1, and then be so aggressive about their mode of implementation.

The meme of "QE to infinity" seems apposite, although it's certainly not a done deal. Regardless, whether gold and silver are the best ways to profit from the Fed's decision or not is another matter entirely: a debate perhaps better left for another day. But let's just say that, although I was pleased with the rise in the d'Arc's gold investments, I was disappointed not to have invested more than I had in the resource companies of Kazakhmys (LON:KAZ) and Vedanta (LON:VED), which have both moved by 10% since Bernanke's announcement - compared with gold's 3.5% and silver's 6%  (meaning that Monsieur d'Arc will be getting an especially nice Christmas present this year).

Regardless, the exam question for this post concerns whether or not it is a good idea to immediately throw one's life savings into PMs, resource (and other) stocks, etc. Perhaps the 'Bernanke bounce' was overdone, and Monday/Tuesday will see a sharp retracement. Or perhaps we are now at the start of a serious bull market in stocks that will eclipse the dotcom bubble, and it's best to get on board as quickly as possible.

Sunday pre-game, 7/1/2012

UPDATE: I attacked Turd Ferguson in this post on the grounds that he disrespected a Screwtape colleague. I have since reason to believe (as per Turdite and commenter LeGrew's insight) that I might have jumped the gun and accused him unfairly, so I have deleted that part of this post, which, upon reflection, was uncharacteristically nasty, on account of my oxycontin withdrawal pangs at the time. 

Alright, now to the metals. We had a big move to close the week and month. These charts all speak for themselves, but I will speak a few words for them regardless (in captions):

Gold YTD. Watch the 40-day exponential moving average, which I follow in place of the less informative 20-day.

Jeanne d'Arc Escapes From the Cellar

Hello, loyal readers of Screwtape. Sorry about my absence for the last month. I will give you three excuses, and you can decide for yourselves which, if any, of them are true. The first is that Her Majesty unexpectedly called upon me to represent her in a West African conflict zone, and I have needed to spend the last few weeks learning Bambara, improving my Walther-PPK handling, and brushing up on Land Rover maintenance.

The second is that I made GM Jenkins very, very cross indeed, and - for my own good, might I add - needed to spend a while in his coal cellar reflecting on my general attitude towards the silverogosphere, my bloggers-in-arms on other sites, and the over-rated value of sarcasm in a civilised world.

The third is that GM, Warren and I have been too busy preparing for Bilderberg, which we regularly attend as confirmed members of the Illuminati. This year has been especially pressing, given the coming financial apocalypse and all, and it's taken more time out of our busy schedules of whoring, renovating houses and hacking tax records (respectively) than we might otherwise have liked.

You pays your money, and you takes your chances. Anyway, I'm now back, and I'm ready to pwn the kidz like a boss [sorry - I don't know what happened to my more usually conservative diction there...]

Urban Mining and Refining for Gold

This is not some hair brained scheme involving scamming people using "Cash for gold" scams, grave robbing or anything sinister.

This information is given freely and can be linked to. We will object to anyone copying this information and reposting it as their own work.

This is my nice way of saying I will sue your ass if you copy and post this elsewhere :)

You do this at your own risk to your health and all these experiments should be done out doors and away from children and animals as we are dealing with toxic chemicals and materials. In short if you are impatient, ADHD or have an IQ less than 100 please stop reading now.

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.

Carnage vs. Calm

Well, that's it. It's official. The gold bull is over. Dennis Gartman said so, so it must be true, given his outstanding track record. And Jon Nadler agrees, so it's as good as in the bag. Even the perma-bullish blogosphere is full of doom and gloom.

I'd agree that things feel pretty bad. Gold has made a series of lower highs since it hit $1900 back in September, and silver is still suffering from its broken parabola of 2 May. It's not surprising therefore that last week's plunge on the back of disappointment that the FOMC minutes didn't endorse new quantitative easing measures (i.e. 'QE III') has rendered an already bearish community almost without hope.

But do the charts support the thesis that gold's bull run is over? Are we sitting on the precipice awaiting carnage, with our already red positions about to go scarlet? Or are the charts telling us that nothing unusual has happened, and that all is calm. Let's take a look, and - for fun - let's keep score on the Carnage vs Calm points...