Gold broke out of the 16 month down trend channel on Friday, closing at the weekly highs and apparently on the verge of a major breakout, boosted by tumbling equities and a weakening dollar.
However the new week, which held such promise for the bulls, has not gone to plan, with gold falling sharply yesterday and continuing to exhibit weakness this morning as the bears fight back, desperate to push the price back into the down trend channel and keep the yellow metal in a intermediate bear trend.
It is clear that the fortunes of gold remain tied tightly to the equity markets - the gold bulls need a significant correction in stock markets to unfold before a strong rally in gold can begin in earnest.
With gold tracing out a "flat bottomed triangle" on the weekly chart, we still consider a break of $1180 to be the most likely scenario in coming weeks, though a break of $1300 would see us change our view to bullish.
Support can be found at $1250-$1255, $1237-$1240, $1220-$1225, $1214, $1210, $1200, $1188-$1190 and $1180. A break of $1180 would have serious bearish implications for gold and suggest a decline to $1000-$1050 in the short term.
Resistance can be found at $1268-$1272, $1277-$1280 and $1291-$1295. Holding support at $1250 and a subsequent break above $1279 would suggest an end to the intermediate term down trend, though it would take a close above $1300 to confirm a more significant rally was developing.