Talk about the perfect sequel to that written a week ago: indeed Gold got that grip while bitcoin got bit. Were it always this easy. 

A mere nine trading days ago (Dec. 12) Gold was below The Box (1280-1240) at the “uh oh, say it ain’t so” level of 1238. But by yesterday (Friday), it traded as high as 1280: that’s a not-so-remarkable 3.4% recovery in less than two weeks. But more importantly: The Box for the billionth time has saved Gold from more disparaging depths, price settling out the week at 1279.

But bitcoin really bit it … and bit it bad. You’ll recall a week ago our being all amped up about watching bitcoin begin trading in real-time on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Scary? Oh yes.

Let’s take you directly into the fray with this screenshot we took on Thursday at 07:00 Pacific Time, the moment of the trading day when markets are generally at their most robust level of activity. Below from left-to-right are the “market depth” bids and offers for the futures of Gold, the S&P, and bitcoin. Gold’s market (left) appears very normal, liquid and balanced, as does that for the Big Daddy of futures trading, the S&P 500 (center). But look at bitcoin (right): illiquid, unbalanced, and thin with pricing gaps. That spells one word: “DANGER.”

Of course we all saw what happened: after trading as high as 20,650 on Monday, bitcoin fell to as low as 12,265 by Friday. That’s a plunge of -40% … and you don’t need your abacus nor slide rule to project that bitcoin at would be worthless by Wednesday. So great timing by Goldman to have just announced the opening of their cryptocurrency trading desk, eh? “Saved by Sachs!” … perhaps.

Now let’s switch back to substance: Gold. And in viewing its weekly bars we see the purple bounds of The Box having again done their supportive due diligence. Further, the descending red dots of parabolic Short trend and present price appear equidistant from the end of the ascending dashed linear regression trendline. A meeting of them all at 1300? It does have “that look”: