Gold has decisively broken below its $850 support level as it fell further today and closed at $819. While I did think the early week would be negative, I didn't think it would be this negative. There's no way it's going to make my forecast target of $870 now. As predicted, the U.S. dollar recovery continues apace with corresponding losses in Oil which fell to $113 today and the Euro which closed at 1.4922. Significantly, both Euro and Oil stayed above their long term support levels. Clearly, Gold is suffering from more bearish sentiment. I am concerned now that the Sun's transit of Mercury-ruled Ashlesha is correlating with pessimism about Gold due to Mercury's approaching conjunction with Saturn. I had thought that the presence of benefics Mercury and Venus in Leo would offset this negativity, but that is not the case. With this scenario in mind, it's likely that Gold will go below $800 and may be only recover modestly by Friday.
Whatever the logic of the transit analysis might be, there's no doubt that the GLD ETF chart is showing this price collapse because the natal subperiod lord Mercury is suffering under the aspect from natal Ketu. Ketu will station on this point for another month, so on the surface, this creates more of an uphill climb for Gold. Several weeks ago, I had thought that we'd see a bottom in August and I still think that's the most likely outcome. I'm still confident the rally will occur, but there may be new lows here below $800, or even $750, and that will make our $900 target look very ambitious indeed. It's not easy being a yellow metal this month.
