Dollar Decision Time Approaching
Which way ? I like Avocados chart. It keeps me alert to the possibility of a huge dollar rally. What stops me from thinking this is the most likely outcome is time. We’re running out of it. Everything else seems to be pointing to a breakdown. The megaphone pattern is very significant. It tells us the market is very unsure. It’s most common at major, cyclical tops or bottoms. A top or a bottom can be ‘V’ shaped or it can be a long, drawn out topping/bottoming process. To help decide whether we’re forming a top, or a base to launch from, I’d say that the time factor is key. Where are we in terms of the larger cycles ? Are we approaching a major cyclical top, or should we be turning down ? Gold looks to have formed a massive, and I mean MASSIVE 5 year base. A move above the $1400 area will be decisive. At that point, I believe PM stocks will go nuts, probably more than doubling within 6 to 12 months. Individual stocks could easily go up by 400 to 600%. We’re not there yet though. A rapid move to above 110 on the dollar ISN’T impossible. In my view, taking the signal from gold and cycle timings into account, it’s a low probability (maybe 10 to 15%). As Fully has said, gold can rise along with the dollar, and certainly needs to start showing relative strength. However, a 20% rise in the dollar would likely kill any hopes of a gold breakout for some time. Also worth remembering, is the fact that gold is already breaking out from multi-year downtrends in other currencies. I’ve tried to summarise a lot of this on the chart below.
Fundamentally, I believe both Europe and US have issues. The biggest risk for the world economy and currencies the next years is China where debt is too high with a strong currency. Any weakening of economy will increase devaluation fears. That could be $ positive.
True Alex, but various ‘dollar positive’ factors did nothing to prevent the cyclical declines from ’85 to ’95 and 2002 to 2008.
Fully agree, a cycle is a cycle, fundamentals can NOT overrule that. I strongly believe in the possibility of a down cycle as shown by your charts. The only risk I see is that it will be more volatile than before, and maybe the first years more like a trading range. Of course maybe Euro will be stronger due to exit of weaker countries like Italy and Spain, and cycle will be as strong as before.
The China risk however should not be overlooked:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/china-economy-morgan-stanley-predicts-chinas-account-deficit-in-2019.html
So much to ponder Alex – as you say, cycles are cycles, and sometimes they’re strong, sometimes not so much. It would be nice to have a crystal ball sometimes 🙂
Beautiful chart NS
Especially those red arrows….amazing how parallel they are
Good discussion guys
Thanks, we’re all here to learn Fully. An open mind is a learning mind. There are so many factors at play here, but I keep coming back to the one constant – time (cycles). They should have the ‘casting vote’ when it comes to deciding where we’re headed.