Gold in 2018

Hello everybody, this is the first gold report I am writing here.

I have made profit in 2017 trading gold, mostly increasing and decreasing the position size as well as combining different financial products to optimize the risk.

So if you follow this report, you can see what I have done in 2017 and what I intend to do in 2018.

First, let's have a look at the BIG picture. Below you can see the price of gold from 2009 to today.
What I like to do is to put the filter up and get rid of all that noise. The red bars are average values and every one of them shows a time period of one week. In every red week, gold was trending down.

We've had some strong years until 2011, to the all-time-high. As you can see for yourself, it has been almost a linear path and it went up and up, without any significant correction, so it seems.

From 2011 onwards, instead of a bubble bursting quickly, we can find a violent up and down at higher price levels until the beginning of 2013.

Notice that everything after 2011 looks different to the years from 2009 to 2011. But the chart clearly shows a possible turning point in 2016 and a series of higher lows afterwards. The lows, again, are getting higher along a relatively linear path, as usual.

So if gold goes down to a speculative USD 1200 in January 2018, many traders will have little choice but to step in and buy. It would be a typical trend following position and gold would turn like it usually does.

However, there is one thing that makes me want to wait. We have recently made a lower high in 2017. Compare it to the high of 2016, which is a little bit higher. And that shows weakness, which tells me to be cautious.

So there is uncertainty in my opinion, by looking at the trends over the years, if now we are really back in a rising bullmarket of some kind. In other words, the 1200 dollar level might not be the next good buying opportunity on the radar. To buy at USD 1200 next year does not include a guaranteed push to the USD 1400 level.

My 2018 forecast therefor suggests patience. I try to remain on stand-by looking at both, the 2016 and 2017 highs, because the 2017 high was lower.

How do you interpret the difference between the 2016 and 2017 high? How significant is it to you?

Give me your thoughts on gold and what you think might happen in 2018.
I'd love to read your comments and don't forget to explain :-))

Have a great day,
Martin