Peter Brimelow Straw Poll Shows Technically-Based Optimism

Peter Brimelow has compiled a round-up of recent professional gold-watchers' opinions, and they sound bullish. The ones quoted rest their case of the charts looking good right now, with The Prvateer watching for sovereign-debt crises as a fundamental driver for the metal:

From very high up on the gold-world intellectual food chain, The Privateer's semi-monthly essay this weekend takes the view that a generalized slide in confidence in government debt instruments, and in the agencies that rate them, is underway.

"For U.S. investors, the financial condition of California is much more risky than the financial condition of Greece. And the latest attack by the U.S. ratings agencies is the decision by Moody's on March 4 to downgrade Deutsche Bank in Germany because of a 'lack of transparency regarding the bank's capital market activities.'"

"How pathetic is that, given the Fed's continuing refusal to come clean on their U.S. bank bailout activities?"

Brimelow's column ends with the Market Vane Bullish Consensus number for gold: 77%, up from 70% as of the low almost a month ago. 77% is high enough to give a contrarian pause, but the 70% figure accompanied a major low point. That fact makes a simple contrarian take on the figure problematical.

Of course, gold skeptics can chalk it up to 'stubbornness'...