By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Not only are gold longs’ aspirations for $1,900 an ounce officially over. An old headache may have returned for this crowd: the resumption of the “lower for longer” trend.
“Gold remains in the danger zone after breaking below the $1800 level,” said Ed Moya, analyst at New York’s OANDA. “If Wall Street grows more confident that dollar dominance is far from over, gold bears could remain in control a while longer.”
U.S. gold futures’ most active contract, December, settled Tuesday’s trade down $22.50, or 1.2%, at $1,783.80 an ounce.
It was the fourth straight day of declines for gold, marking the longest price skid in seven months.
It’s a dramatic reversal of sentiment in the yellow metal, which just a week ago seemed on its strongest march yet toward reprising June’s peaks of $1,900 an ounce, or even the August 2020 record highs of above $2,000.
Most importantly, for almost 10 days in a row — between Nov 10 and 19 — gold did not leave the mid-$1,800 level and even posted a June high of $1,879.35 at one point. That all these occurred while its twin rivals — the dollar and Treasury yields — were also rallying spoke volumes of the most recent gold rally.
Now, of course, that trend has vanished, with soaring yields and the dollar back to pressuring gold.
“If gold falls below $1,758, which would be a lower low, bearish momentum could target the $1,725 region,” cautioned Moya. “Inflation fundamentals still support flows for bullion, but to make matters worse … some investors are preferring Bitcoin as their inflation hedge.”
Bullion has always been touted as an inflation hedge. But it hasn’t been able to live up to that billing this year on market talk that the Federal Reserve will be forced into a faster-than-expected rate hike by the first quarter of 2022. That speculation has sent Treasury yields and the dollar rallying instead, at bullion’s expense.