What a difference six months can make in the gold market. In October of last year we were looking at bearish gold price forecast for 2018. It was an assessment based on a deep analysis, not on emotions (pro vs anti gold) nor on a dogmatic belief like some permabears or permabulls. As always, we try to neutralize emotions and news, which both serve as noise, in order to stay focused on our methodology. Given the evolution in the last six months we clearly see the first signs of a new bull market in gold and silver starting in 2018, this is why.

Before looking into the bull market signs of 2018 we want to point out that our objective viewpoint comes back in every forecast we make. Again, we are not permabulls nor permabears. This is what we wrote in the 2018 gold price forecast:

We see 3 potential scenarios related to the price of gold playing out in 2018, which we discuss in this article. We highlight which scenario we believe is likely to play out, and which price levels to watch to validate either of our scenarios.

Our bearish gold price forecast was based on a couple of criteria, one of which being the price. The line in the sand in 2018 is $1350 which is what we wrote last year.

Not only is the price of gold moving gradually to $1350 with a pattern of higher lows, which shows strength, but we also see much more frequent attempts to test this level. The ultimate pattern which makes this point is the rounded bottom which we featured in this gold article.

This is one of the two new insights we got from the gold market since we wrote our article last year.

And here is the second, even more important, insight: the gold futures market structure visible in the COTs (Commitment of Traders reports).

A strong sign of an emerging gold bull market in 2018

The price of gold is largely defined by the futures market. Whether this is gold price manipulation is not relevant for this discussion, it’s outside of our scope and our interest of this article. What matters to investors is which leading signals we can recognize in the gold futures market structure.