Summary of post and preliminary remarks
This fairly long post follows the previous 13th June post on EUR/USD, the aim of which was to identify secular, primary and intermediate support and resistance levels using second generation nominal curves, the MIDAS Displacement Channel, and third generation MIDAS curves.
In Figure 2 of the EUR/USD post I also expressed MIDAS caution on gold insofar as a Topfinder of primary degree launched from the October 2008 low had recently completed four weekly bars from the May 2 top. Adjusting the indicator slightly to the only other fitting possible, it was also noted that the resulting second Topfinder only had 10 percent remaining cumulative volume. This implied a cumulative volume “window” of between the completion of the first Topfinder and the remaining 10 percent for the primary degree trend in gold.
In this post, I’ll elaborate on the gold component of the previous post, while two appendices on the Swiss franc and Japanese yen futures also broadly support the MIDAS implications for gold. (The third appendix provides the most likely wavecount on the S&P 500, while the fourth is a unique euro-gold ratio with third generation curves.)
I’ll avoid discussing fundamentals here because of the degree of technical detail to get through (much of it instructional as well as forecast-based). Briefly, however, for those who read the previous post I’ll add the following observations before the main discussion:
- Euro and the Gartley 222 pattern: the bullish wave out of the Gartley 222 pattern had completed by the time of the last post. However, a symmetrical triangle appears to have been forming since early May at the first price objective of the Gartley 222 (see blue arrow), the penultimate upside wave of which has been forming during the recent economic and political responses to the Greek crisis. The implications for a short-term upside breakout in the euro would be consistent, in risk terms, with the second Topfinder readings discussed below. The price targets would follow the Gartley 222/Fibonacci extensions highlighted in my previous post. Here’s a near-term updated chart with a putative intermediate degree symmetrical triangle forming on the first Gartley price target:
Chart 1 – putative intermediate degree symmetrical triangle forming on first Gartley 222 price objective
- German bunds: since early April, haven buying of German bunds as peripheral yields continue to widen alongside CDS insurance costs has fuelled an intermediate trend that ended on 27 June after the recent ECB agreement. This is a likely presage to further likely short-term euro strength once the final downside wave (wave e) of the triangle completes.
- US dollar index: as suggested in the last post, an intermediate to primary degree decline in risk appetite will be the most likely driver of the US dollar, since, as the recent FOMC rate decision highlights, the end of QE2 hardly implies the end of the US dollar as cheap carry, especially when the inflationary implications of a QE3 have been subtly addressed by the decision last week by the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (coordinated by the Internal Energy Agency) to release 60m barrels of oil and petroleum products from their emergency reserves. Moreover, risk aversion is not hard to justify in the present climate: weak Chinese PMI data last week is only the latest indication of a significant hiatus in China’s growth, while EU periphery bond and credit insurance markets – and the growing debt burdens in Italy and Spain – are compounded by core eurozone PMI at 22 month lows. At the same time, the Federal Reserve’s recent downgraded projection for US economic growth and unemployment requires no further emphasis here. So far, the impact on risk appetite is only being moderately reflected in indicators (the VIX bottomed in mid-April and the Put/Call Ratio has recently been jittery) and the S&P 500 appears to be in its final fifth wave. But if the gold Topfinder cumulative volume “window” is correct for the end of this primary trend, the deleveraging of the dollar will have an unimpeded effect on gold, regardless of its frequently cited haven appeal and regardless too of the emerging market obsession with gold (see below).
g A.Coles July 5th 2011
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MAIN POST: MIDAS ASSESSMENT OF THE PRIMARY TREND IN GOLD k
I. A primary degree MIDAS Topfinder on gold and MIDAS third generation curves on the MACD
Briefly, for readers unfamiliar with the MIDAS Topfinder/Bottomfinder (TB-F), the indicator has a restrictive application to trends that are accelerating. In MIDAS terms, the latter condition holds if and only if a standard MIDAS support/resistance curve launched from the start of a trend immediately displaces (ie, moves away) from it.
As Chart 2 below indicates, this essential MIDAS requirement has been in place from the start of the primary trend in gold since the October 2008 low when S1 (green), the standard curve, immediately displaced.

Chart 2 – primary degree Topfinder (red) expiring 4 weekly bars before the May 2nd all time high in gold
The Topfinder (red) was fitted at the pullbacks highlighted by the four black arrows and produced a cumulative volume of 79,999,990 contracts. It recently terminated four weekly bars prior to the early May decline of 6.85%, a30.47% decline in silver and a significant decline in the Reuters/Jeffries CRB index.
Gold has since rallied back to 15,550 on 6th June before falling again and then rallying back to move a few ticks higher to 15,593. This created a modest double top below the all-time high of May 2nd. In the past week gold has also rapidly broken the intermediate degree trendline launched from the low of January 28th 2011. Ignoring other features on the chart temporarily, Chart 3 highlights this most recent price action.

Chart 3 – recent double top in gold and break of intermediate degree trendline
For MIDAS readers who have expressed an interest in third generation curves (ie, curves that remove the “AP” in the VWAP and replace it with other fractal data sets), I illustrated their effectiveness in the previous EUR/USD post when analysing the spread between the 3 month Euribor and Eurodollar futures. My articles in the June and July issues of Active Trader are also devoted to third generation curves. In this post, Chart 4 reveals how a momentum-based curve plotted on the MACD proved to be critical resistance to the double top highlighted in Chart 3.

Chart 4 – third generation MIDAS curves on the MACD
As we see, the third generation MACD curve was launched from the momentum high associated with the price-based high of May 2nd. Subsequently, it acted as key resistance for the first lower high of the double top and also for the second. The second setup is an example of what I call the Dipper Setup, because while price rallies back to create the double top, the MACD dips below the price level to create a negative divergence alongside another MIDAS resistance curve. For decades traders have celebrated the power of momentum divergences but have been unable to time them effectively. This combination of momentum oscillators, such as the MACD, and third generation MIDAS curves finally solves this problem.
However, while the MACD curves are resistance and the intermediate degree trendline has been broken, there’s no definitive proof yet of the end of the primary degree trend in gold until the break of the primary degree trendline from the October 2008 low. See Chart 5.

Chart 5 – Primary degree linear trendline (purple) still intact
This justifies the launch of a second TF. The question is where to fit it. The logical choice, as in Chart 6, is the bottom of the pullback highlighted by the black arrow, since this is the only pullback now that provides a larger cumulative volume prediction than the first TF in Chart 2. As I write (July 5th), this Topfinder is 91.6% done, and crucially gold is finding support on it, which might indicate a new rallying point. Beneath this Topfinder, we see the actual linear trendline defining the primary trend from the same October 2008 low.
Note in Chart 6 that the Topfinder is now critical nonlinear primary degree support for gold. If this Topfinder is significant, it must hold price, otherwise (if it is broken) we revert to the first TF that completed.

Chart 6 – new TF 91.6% done and currently critical support for gold kk
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II. The secular degree trend in gold and why the secular degree Topfinder is inapplicable
It may not have escaped the noticed of some readers that the secular degree trend (10 to 25 years) in gold from the 2001 bottom also appears to be accelerating. Indeed, as in Chart 7, we have the same setup for a TF (red), since S1 (green) displaced immediately from the trend when it was launched from the March 2001 bottom. This enormous secular-degree TF is 56.9% done, suggesting – on an extrapolation of a price/time reading from the cumulative volume prediction – that we could see another decade of rising gold prices.

Chart 7 – secular degree trend in gold from 2001 – is it really accelerating despite the displacement of the standard curve?
However, the implication for endless USD debasement makes nonsense of this prediction. So what has gone wrong? Why if this trend is accelerating according to the standard MIDAS definition shouldn’t we take the prediction seriously?
The answer is that the area highlighted between the blue support and resistance lines is where the trend decelerates far too much and for far too long for the entire secular move to be regarded as one unified accelerated trend.
This can be seen with the Fractal Dimension Index (FDI) in the lower pane breaking deeply above the 1.5 (Hurst, 0.5) level. Readers of the book will recall my discussing this indicator and its synergy with the TB-F both in Chapters 1 and 4.
The 1.5 level on the indicator (ie, the thick blue horizontal line on the indicator in Chart 7) signifies a random walk and (above it) anti-persistence. As I showed in the Dietmar Shaupe images in the book (p16), a market Hurst reading below 0.4 to 0.5 (fractal dimension, 1.6 to 1.5) is useless for MIDAS applications, especially the TB-F. The only MIDAS tool that works in random and anti-persistent markets is the MIDAS Displacement Channel (Chapter 14) and Bob English’s Reverse VWAP/MIDAS (Chapter 17).
In contrast to Chart 7, Chart 8 correctly fits TF-1 to the n-1th degree pullbacks at the three arrows and it accurately captures the first accelerated phase of this secular degree trend.

Chart 8 – correctly fitting the TF to the n-1th degree pullbacks that are still integral to the accelerating trend
S2 in this chart was labelled S1 in Chart 2, and above S2 there is the original TF in Chart 6, here labelled TF-2.
Since 2011 the FDI is showing the highest fractal dimension (persistence) since 1997, and we now know that the higher the FDI reading, the more accurate a TB-F becomes. Contrast this period, for example, with the period covering TF-1, where the FDI briefly crossed over the 1.5 level three times and almost a fourth time. Consequently, confidence is higher that the combination of very high fractal readings in the FDI plus a newly fitted Topfinder in gold in Chart 6 will yield an accurate forecast (or has yielded an accurate forecast in the case of the first (expired) TF in Chart 2). jj
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III. The importance of supporting data
Since the extrapolation of a TB-F’s cumulative volume prediction to price represents the biggest variable in MIDAS analysis, it’s important when using the TB-F to look for price-based (and/or other) supporting readings when relying on it. After all, the TB-F is most accurate in calling market tops or bottoms just at the point when its user is expected to take the most deeply contrarian trading/investment stance possible. Indeed, the price-based environment will display very high fractal persistence in indicators such as the FDI and it will probably be a wave 3 in Elliott Wave terms.
In the present case, I’ll merely discuss declining open interest, though there are now also sharply declining momentum readings of intermediate degree (at least) on gold futures.
In October 2010, Bob English (www.precisioncapmgt.com) warned of the completion of a TB-F on Zero Hedge here, which I’ve duplicated in Chart 9. English’s TF was measuring the intermediate trend (6 weeks to 9 months) from the late July 2010 low, and while obviously the end of an intermediate trend could coincide with the end of a primary trend (9 months to 2 years), it’s not guaranteed. In any case, English’s forecast for the end of the accelerated portion of the trend was accurate, with price thereafter climbing unsteadily as the slightly lagging FDI gradually moved back to random and then anti-persistent readings.

Chart 9 – an accurate TB-F prediction by Bob English amidst a classic MIDAS setup
The correction back to S1 (green) should be noted on this chart. First, of course, the displacement of this curve from the start of the intermediate trend warned that an accelerated trend was starting. Thereafter, price’s pullback to it was textbook MIDAS behaviour. However, price penetrated S1 with a fair amount of porosity. We understand why when we plot the volume histogram with a 10 period MA in Chart 10.
Bearing in mind Rule #1 in my Chapter 11 of the book, we know that sharply increasing volume will pull a MIDAS curve sharply up towards an upwardly moving price trend. Consequently, if price pulls back by 38% or more, there will be porosity unless we launch a nominal (second generation) MIDAS curve. In Chart 10 below, we see that upwardly trending volume in segment (1) pulls the curve up and that the downwardly trending volume in segment (2) starts to push it down. However, the lag is too great to push the curve down far enough. As a result, the nominal (green) curve is a far better price target.
The volume-based rules of Chapter 11 of the book, and the application of standard versus nominal curves, are vital to any enlightened use of MIDAS curves.

Chart 10 – advanced rule-based application of MIDAS curves in the interaction between standard (first generation) and nominal (second generation) curves
In any case, I also call attention to English’s analysis in Chart 9 because the end of the English Topfinder coincided with sharply declining total open interest in gold futures, as can be seen in Chart 11 (black arrows).

Chart 11 – Sharply declining open interest in gold coinciding with the accurate termination of Bob English’s intermediate degree Topfinder
The middle pane shows the conventional positioning of the funds/speculators and commercials. The funds are still net long but open interest has been declining since English’s TF, while the commercials (here commercial producers (mining companies)) are net short, as they are negative feedback sellers (averaging up) all the way up a rising market, to protect against falling commodity prices. The producers too have been reducing their open interest since the expiry of the same Topfinder.
It was reported that the first decline in gold after the May 2nd top was regarded as a buying opportunity in India, the world’s largest gold-buying country (a fifth of all global demand and a tenth in the case of silver), as indicated by activity in Mumbai’s Zaveri market and disclosed by large bullion dealers such as UBS and Standard Bank. It was expected that India could well provide a floor at the 14,625 level (futures) after the May 2nd decline, with low interest rates in China also playing their part in a surge in gold buying due to the cost of carry (the difference between interest on deposits and non-interest bearing gold) incentivizing interest in risk assets (a motivation that applies just as obviously to gold ETFs and US investors). However, the SEC’s disclosure that back in March George Soros, along with several other large funds, had sold most of his holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust and IShares Gold Trust, has been well publicized.
In addition, the primary degree trend in speculative gold open interest isn’t supporting emerging market interest in gold, while the commercials too have stopped averaging down.
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Appendix I: A Topfinder on Swiss franc continuous futures
The Swiss franc has an obvious relevance in this overview (80 percent correlation with gold, a haven asset, and the franc backed by a 40 percent holding of gold reserves), not least because in MIDAS terms it’s one of the few currencies in the US dollar index that’s accelerating. Moreover, the remaining cumulative volume reading on the Topfinder is virtually coextensive with TF-2 on gold (ie, 90.5% done, or 9.5% cumulative volume left to expire). As Chart 12 highlights, the slightly lagging FDI is also indicating the increasingly strong fractal persistence in this trend, meaning again that the higher the fractal reading, the more seriously we can take the Topfinder cumulative volume data.

Chart 12 – TF on CHF futures with 9.5% remaining cumulative volume and an extremely strong fractal persistence in the FDI
In recent weeks, the Swiss franc has been making a series of all time highs against the euro, resulting in the Swiss government downgrading its economic forecast while blaming the franc. While much of the franc’s strength has been explained in terms of its haven appeal vis-à-vis the euro and the peripheral debt issue, there comes a point – especially during an accelerated trend – when the appeal to haven purchasing arguably gives way to (or is at least bolstered by) heavy speculative demand, and hence a replacement – or bolstering – of risk aversion with risk appetite, in the same way as the basic dynamic of the primary trend in gold is bolstered by risk appetite, the inflationary implications of a falling US dollar, and the conventional assumption that gold too is a haven asset.
Update: A fractionally reduced D (duration, cumulative volume) input in the Topfinder results in a variation of the TF that completed Thursday 30th June. During the US trading session, the franc fell by 6% in a bearish Dark Cloud Cover and is now finding support on the completed Topfinder.

Chart 13 – A marginally adjusted Topfinder completing on Thursday 30th with a 6% decline during the US trading session
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Appendix II: primary and intermediate degree momentum divergences on Japanese yen futures
Yen futures aren’t accelerating, as can be seen in Chart 14 by the slightly lagging FDI highlighting that the yen has been losing its persistence since early 2009 (vertical line) before becoming random and even anti-persistent.
However, it’s noteworthy that even in random markets standard MIDAS S/R curves are still highly effective, as the three support curves on this chart illustrate and as I stressed in discussing the Saupe diagram in Chapter 1 of the book. However, the yen is exhibiting sharply declining momentum of primary degree alongside other risk (commodity) currencies (ie, Australian dollar, NZ dollar, and Canadian dollar). This can be seen in the middle pane, where the weekly MACD is diverging negatively at primary and intermediate degree (sharply in the latter case).

Chart 14 – random and anti-persistent readings in the FDI aren’t compatible with TB-F applications but still support standard S/R curves effectively
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Appendix III: competing wavecounts on the S&P 500 
Chart 15 – corrective or impulsive?
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Appendix IV: the Gold-Euro Ratio and third generation MIDAS curves
As I discussed in the Active Trader articles, ratio analysis provides outstanding contexts for third generation MIDAS curves, giving rise to extensive Dipper and Inversion setups. (An Inversion setup occurs when a curve on the ratio captures a high in a price uptrend or a low in a price downtrend. This is beyond the scope of price-based curves, albeit the MIDAS Displacement Channel also has a reasonable tract record of capturing some of these hidden inversion points.)
I’ve added this fourth appendix to highlight an excellent chart full of Dipper and Inversion Setups as the euro declines in a secular degree trend against gold.

Chart 16 – Euro/Gold ratio in secular decline with extensive Dipper and Inversion setups kk kk
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