We have to admit it. With respect to last week's piece "Gold's Near-Term Brush With The 1600s," we were a bit dubious about the 1600s potentially getting teased. As a broad-term gold bull, writing negatively about price is hardly pleasant. But we're guided by what the numbers are, and by what occurs when said numbers are what they are.

Thus, upon gold's weekly parabolic trend a week ago, flipping from Long to Short, we assessed the numbers, wringing from them what we could forecast, and wrote that gold (then 1783) faced getting sold sub-1700. And for this past week, settling on Friday at 1733 -- the net decline of -2.8% being gold's worst weekly loss in three months -- price traded down within 15 points (at 1714.9) of the 1600s.

Again, to write and be right can be annoying, especially per the following graph of gold's weekly bars from a year ago-to-date wherein said parabolic Short trend has only just started, as indicated by the red dots furthest to the right:

Gold's technical saving grace, however, is the delineated 1789-1672 structural support zone. Gold's fundamental saving grace is the debasement valuation of 3698. Similarly, 1733 -- should we be correct about Gold reaching 2401 in 2021 -- means a gain of 39% remains as a possibility from here this year.

And per currencies' bizarre printing pace, valuation can hardly be "priced in." The first time gold reached 1733 (nearly 10 years ago on Aug. 9, 2011) the U.S. Money Supply as measured by M2 was $9.5 trillion and the gold supply was 175 thousand metric tons. Since then, M2 has more than doubled, but the supply of gold is only 14% higher.

Gold is so cheap at this juncture that it is almost a gift; currency debasement proves it so. Just as the S&P 500 is so fatally beyond expensive that it resembles a trap ready to snap; the lack of earnings proves it so.

That said, we've still seen gold at the bottom of the year-to-date BEGOS Market Standings, the two big economic winners being oil and copper. Indeed, you may recall our text on Feb. 2 (oil was at 53 then) that said: "...structurally it would appear that price can run up to test the January 2020 high of 65.65." Oil reached 63.81 this past Thursday. Here's the table:

Now as we turn to our month-end review of gold and key precious metal equities from a year ago-to-date, we've got quite a performance range.

From first-to-worst: Pan American Silver (PAAS) at +49%, the Global X Silver Miners exchange-traded fund (SIL) at +33%, Newmont (NEM) +24%, the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners exchange-traded fund (GDX) at +8%, Gold itself at +5%, Franco-Nevada (FNV) at -1%, and Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) at -8%. There are plenty of profitable turnarounds to the upside awaiting:

Economically, StateSide reports on balance are looking up. Just in the past week, The Conference Board's February reading on Consumer Confidence improved, as did January reports for Leading Indicators, New Home Sales, Durable Orders, and both Personal Income and Spending.

True, there was one real stinker: the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index suffered its largest drop since COVID-19 really kicked in last April. But otherwise, the economy is jumping.

Of course, as Australia's sovereign Future Fund chairman Peter Costello just remarked, "Anyone who thinks they know what the conditions of the economy will be in three years’ time is kidding themselves." He foresees a global equities markets "clean-out," (see the aforementioned S&P P/E).

Still, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell in testifying before Congress this past week expects "easy money" to be maintained, all of which ought to soundly rebound to gold's gain. And while others of the week's FedSpeak expressed little concern over rising interest rates, we're watching them with an eagle eye: the yield of the 30-year bond is now up to 2.182%, that of the S&P 500 is 1.474%, and that of the neighboring 10-year note is 1.460%.

In moving to the specific state of the BEGOS Markets across their respective daily bars from one month ago-to-date, there are some really obvious anomalies per the grey diagonal trend lines. The Euro is rising against the Dollar, but the Swiss Franc is falling; silver is rising, but gold is falling. And the bullish economic lean is present as the bond falls (i.e. yields rise), with oil, copper, and the S&P 500 having gone to the skies.

Despite being broadly optimistic for the precious metals, our view per their 10-day Market Profiles -- gold on the left and silver on the right -- is a bit onerous given the denoted bulk of overhead trading resistance across the big bellies of both profiles:

With just two months now complete in 2021, gold has been southbound, having departed the gateway to 2000 with stops at the final frontier and the northern front. And yet, our forecast high of 2401 for this year remains confidently in place at the upper right:

Another busy week awaits the Economic Barometer, with some 14 incoming metrics coming in. Regardless, watch for increasing volatility in the markets. A would-be gold brush with the 1600s is hardly far from here, but either way we foresee firming in the future for higher levels.

And as for the S&P, a variety of its textbook technical studies have already turned negative, notably the daily MACD ("moving average convergence divergence") and daily Parabolic studies. The daily Price Oscillator is negatively trending, and the Moneyflow, as regressed into S&P points, is extremely negative.