In this article, we want to focus on gold’s sesonality, and what it could mean in the context of gold’s secular trend.

On a very long term horizon, between 1982 and 2012, gold typically started rising early July, corrected slightly in October, and closed the year higher. The first chart, courtesy of Dimitri Speck from www.seasonalcharts.com, shows that the second week of June typically kicked off the yearly rise.

Gold – Will This Summer's Rally Confirm The Breakout

Let’s look at gold’s seasonality since the secular bull market started in 2002. The second chart, courtesy of StockCharts.com, shows the number of months in which gold closed higher than it opened. Clearly, July through September stands out as the period in which the highest number of monthly closes take place. October is one of the weakest months in the year.

gold_seasonality_2002_2015

So far, we conclude that gold bulls would like to see a strong summer which would send the message that gold’s secular bull market is still intact.

Looking one level deeper into the characteristics of the summer rallies during the current secular bull, we found another set of interesting insights. The table below shows the exact period in which gold had a summer rally, along with the price rise in USD (expressed in %). Interestingly, we see that gold started to rally between June and mid-July in 8 out of the last 10 years. Over that same period of time, the average price rise during those rallies was 16.3%.

gold_summer_rallies

What does this mean in the context of the current cyclical bear market within gold’s secular bull? In attempting to answer that question, we rely on the long term trend, which is reflected in the trendlines on the weekly chart.

The Breakout Point

The red trendline on the weekly is the one with the highest number of touchpoints, which implies an increased importance of the trendline. We could make the case that gold has broken out mid-March of this year (green circle). One could argue that such a breakout went unnoticed, as nobody has spoken about this “event,” concluding that it was a non-event. We believe the opposite is true. Because of the fact that it went unnoticed during a cyclical correction (bear market), it increases the odds that it was THE important event. That is how bear markets end, nobody talks about it … that is exactly how it goes.

gold_price_weekly_trendline_June_2015

The importance of this summer’s seasonality is quite high. If gold’s summer rally turns out to be strong, we would conclude two things. First, we would have a confirmation of the seasonal trend during the secular bull market, increasing the probability that the secular bull is still intact. Second, the picture on the chart would improve meaningfully, increasing the probability of the breakout point in March.

These are very interesting times for gold!

This article is written for www.SecularInvestor.com and summarized for CrushTheStreet.com.