Hope springs eternal: despite the retreating price of gold, some investors are still hanging on tightly to their exchange traded funds (ETFs).

Mark Hulbert for MarketWatch reports that gold is posting a loss for the year-to-date, and gold ETFs are now nearing 18% off their March highs.

Yet some gold timers are hanging in and hoping the bottom has been reached so that gold can once again resume its ascent.

Why wait? The current trend for gold isn’t heading up. Perhaps now is a good time for investors who want to be in the markets to look at trends that are moving instead of racking up losses. Our strategy is to get in when a fund crosses above its 200-day moving average, and to get out when it drops below that point or 8% off its high.

Gold this morning was sitting at $820.40 an ounce, a far cry from its all-time high of $1,030.80 in March.

• SPDR Gold Shares (GLD): down 1% year-to-date; down 17.8% from March 17 high
• iShares COMEX Gold (IAU): down 0.9% year-to-date; down 17.8% from March 17 high
• PowerShares DB Gold (DGL): down 2.8% year-to-date; down 18% from March 17 high

Tags: DGL, GLD, Gold, IAU, Precious Metals