Gold has been trending higher since the fall, and after a retracement earlier this year, the past month has seen the yellow metal surge by over 12% to reach new 52-week highs on an intraday and closing basis as it moves back above the March 20th intraday high.

Not only is gold at a 52-week high, but it is at the highest level since March 2022. That was when gold spiked higher to come up just short of the August 2020 high. In other words, the recent rally in gold has been significant, but leaves it short of a critical resistance level to watch.

While the post-pandemic highs have yet to be taken out, the fact that the commodity has reached a 52-week high is at least promising based on historical performance. In the charts below we show the average performance of front-month gold after the first 52-week highs (on an intraday basis) in at least two weeks. As shown, near-term performance is nothing to write home about with one-week returns that are basically right in line with the norm for performance since 1975. From there, returns tend to get much stronger with a higher consistency of gains to boot. Longer run returns like six months to one year out are particularly impressive with average gains that are more than double that of the average gain for all periods.

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