“I think I’ll go to sleep and dream about piles of gold getting bigger and bigger and bigger.” Fred C. Dobbs, in the 1948 movie, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (John Huston, director)

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CONCLUSION

The extent to which important financial playgrounds intertwine and their alleged trends converge or diverge (or, lead or lag) are matters of opinion, as are perspectives on and reasons for such relationships and movements. Apparent convergence/divergence and lead/lag patterns between currency, interest rate, stock, and commodity marketplaces nevertheless offer guidance to players seeking to explain, predict, or profit from financial price movements. Marketplace history need not repeat itself, either entirely or even in part. Thus these relationships can change, sometimes dramatically. Fundamental supply/demand factors and trends are not written in stone. And competing historians and clairvoyants do not necessarily share the same perspectives or tell the same stories regarding either a given financial playground or its relationships to other arenas.

The relationships between gold and the US dollar, as well as those between gold and other commodities and stock and interest rate marketplaces, are complex. Often, gold prices travel in roughly similar fashion to those of base metals in general and the overall petroleum complex. Yet sometimes substantial fears regarding financial meltdown (asset value destruction) or striking worries about political evolution or disruption also can influence gold’s supply/demand and price profile, and thereby gold’s interrelations with commodities as well as currency and securities marketplaces. In any case, significant gold price trend changes often precede or roughly coincide (or “confirm”) those elsewhere.

Gold probably established an important low not long ago, at $1124 on 12/15/16. Suppose this gold rally continues for at least the near term. The gold ascent probably warns of peaks in the broad real trade-weighted United States dollar (“TWD”) and the S+P 500. The current divergence between the S+P 500 and emerging marketplace nation stocks in recent months likewise warns of these trend shifts. Relevant to this viewpoint, the 10 year United States Treasury note yield established a major low at 1.32 percent on 7/6/16. In addition, suppose gold’s recent climb eventually coincides with a renewed slump in the LMEX base metals index (London Metal Exchange) from its 11/28/16 top at 2857, and at least a modest tumble in benchmark petroleum prices. That probably will interrelate with this scenario of US dollar weakness and erosion of S+P 500 and emerging marketplace stock prices.

The American political theater is relevant to this outlook for gold price and its relationship to the US dollar and other marketplaces. Trump’s remarkable Presidential victory and his likely policies probably have increased fears in both American and international domains regarding the quality of America’s political leadership and the consequences of its economic (political) philosophy. Moreover, the nation’s various sharp cultural divisions and related partisan political conflicts will not disappear anytime soon.

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Gold and Goldilocks- 2017 Marketplaces (1-10-17)