Buying Opportunity?

Over at Minyanville, gold cycle analyst Toby Connor uses a multicycle analysis to conclude the gold bull market is still intact, and fears of a bubble popping in the immediate future are unfounded. He makes the noteworthy point that no secular bull market has ever come to an end before a blow-off phase, which has not occurred in gold yet.

After he works down to a daily cycle, he has this advice to offer:

...we can extrapolate a reasonable timing band for a final bottom somewhere in the next one to two weeks.

Here's what to look for:

First off, I think gold will need to retrace at least 50% of the intermediate rally. That would come in around $1,155.

Next, I'd like to see sentiment turn extremely bearish. We're already well on our way to that happening as public sentiment is now nearing the same levels we saw at the February intermediate cycle bottom.

About this time we'll see the conspiracy theorists blaming a mysterious gold cartel for what, in reality, is just a normal correction within an ongoing bull market, and one that happens like clockwork about every 20 weeks.

So the bottom line is, we're on the verge of getting one of the best buying opportunities we ever get in a bull market sometime in the next week or two. The question you have to ask yourself is, will you take it or will you let the "technicals" talk you into missing another fleeting chance to accumulate at bargain prices in the only secular bull market left? Let's face it, at intermediate cycle bottoms, the technicals aren't going to look like a bottom. Instead, they're going to look like the bull is broken.

I don't want to get into the manipulation issue, but his use of volubility as a sentiment indicator does make some sense.

I should add another point: there's not only the possibility that gold will go significantly lower than his buy point, but there's also the possibility that gold will bottom while still above it. Even with clear-cut advice, there's always a judgment call and some kind of risk.