Despite plenty of debate regarding gold’s near-term fate, the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) is up 13.1% over the past month. Gold’s recent surge has helped the yellow metal clear some important technical hurdles, which could be a harbinger of even more gains to come.
Gold-related assets have been rallying as global volatility helped support safe-haven investments and a weakening U.S. dollar helped prop up the dollar-denominated hard asset. However, the precious metal is seeing prices fall off as investors dive back into riskier segments of the market.
Still, bullion’s bounce has not convinced all market observers that a sustained rally is in store. Although precious metals ETFs have recently displayed some strength, gold is still in a lengthy bear market, giving some traders pause about how much more near-term upside the yellow metal has in store.
Gold has been in a 3-year bear market, which has seen failed rallies on the back of various news events. Continued strength in the US economy and labor market has offset political and economic events since the Gold market turned bearish in 2013.
Conversely, recent technical action is encouraging.
“Gold’s rally this month broke it out of a three-year-old downward trend and pushed it above the first standard deviation line of its five-year average for the first time since June. By breaching those two levels, considered resistance points by technical analysts, the metal’s price of just over $1,200 an ounce now is testing another — the 23.6 percent Fibonacci line of about $1,250. If it breaks through that barrier, the next targets would be the 38.2 percent Fibonacci line of $1,375 and the $1,410 five-year average,” reports Phil Kuntz for Bloomberg.