After breaking out of a year long consolidation pattern around the $2,000 price level, gold created a nice sustainable uptrend channel (lower green line). As global geopolitical instability increased early this year, a new uptrend line was formed. However, with the Trump administration's trade policies and tariffs, a third trend line has emerged. This line is unsustainable over any significant period of time, and frankly, we don't want to live in a world where the price of gold continues to rise that quickly. 

Depending on what happens on the trade war and Ukraine/Russia war over the next few months, we could see the line hold for a ride to prices well over $4,000 per ounce as we move into this summer. Or, we could see another consolidation phase in the $3,000 per ounce level. What is likely is that the bars on the chart that indicate the trading range for each week will continue to be tall - in other words, price volatility will continue. 

Now, let's take a look at silver. Last newsletter we skipped it because its price action was rather uninspiring. Over the past few months, that really hasn't changed much. For those holding silver, it has been frustrating to watch it move modestly against gold's dramatic rise. From our point of view, silver has entered a period of confusion. "Should I act like I'm an industrial metal in an era of economic uncertainty (price falls), or should I act like an instability insurance and monetary metal (price rises)?" Thus, what we have is silver trading in a channel. The good news is, the channel is above that pesky multi-year resistance around the $29 to $30 level. When it convincingly breaches the $35 mark, there is little to stop it from pushing above the $40/ounce mark rather quickly. We do believe that will happen, but of course it's difficult to tell when. As we've said before, silver has always had a mind of its own. So we wait and accumulate.