2014 has only recently arrived and equity investors are already longing for the massive gains experienced in the year prior. Gold and silver investors, however, were more than happy to see 2013 end and have so far been very pleased with the New Year.
On Friday, the current trends continued, as the market continued to drop, while gold jumped as high as $1,272 an ounce, a two-month high. Friday also marked gold’s fifth straight week with a gain.
$1,272 is a significant number for other technical trading reasons as well. In 2013, shorting gold turned out to be a great trade, as the price fell nearly 30 percent. This attitude has bled over into 2014, as there are still a number of people that feel gold should be much lower. This has led to “a record amount of shorts in the market,” according to Mihir Dange, a gold options trader with Grafite Capital. Dange follows this by saying, “But usually record shorts and a rally should lead to some sort of squeeze somewhere.” This is where the $1,270 amount comes into play.
MacNeil Curry, head of global strategy of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, calls $1,270 a “critical level,” and believes that this could mark the beginning of the “squeeze.” Curry thinks that once $1,270 is broken (which gold nearly finished at on Friday), then, “you’re going to see people bailing. Technically inclined people, at least, will exit their shorts.”
A mass exit from these short positions could lead to a sizable short-term jump in gold prices as investors close out their short positions by taking up long positions. RBC’s precious metal strategist, George Gero, has written that, “A close over $1,275 would signal momentum traders to re-enter the long side.”
Whether it is at $1,270 or $1,275, Curry and Gero both see a jump coming soon. Curry predicts that once gold crosses $1,270, the next resistance level could be as a high as a range of $1,362 and $1,399.