David Fuller's view The obvious point is that bullion remains within its secular bull market which first became evident in 2001. The challenging questions include: how high will it go on this move; how strong will it be relative to other markets, including currencies; when will the next significant correction occur; what could end the bull trend and how will we recognise it?

These are not easy to answer but the first point is that gold is slightly overbought in the short term so we may see a brief pause and consolidation before long. However, the overall pattern appears well supported by the post-December 2009 correction and ranging consolidation in response to the last significant overextension relative to the trend mean, depicted by the rising 200-day moving average.

For students of factual and behavioural technical analysis, there is no evidence of Type-1, 2 or 3 top formation development as taught at The Chart Seminar. The most significant correction in the overall uptrend to date occurred, not surprisingly, between March and October 2008. The high in 2008 occurred from a clearly overextended condition relative to the MA and was confirmed by a dramatic weekly key reversal. Bullion fell by over 30% and the MA actually turned downwards. However, gold continued to show remarkable relative strength by falling less than any stock market index or other futures-traded commodity. It was also quick to bottom and retrace the decline.

Returning to the current position, negative factors are the short-term overbought condition mentioned above, plus further competition from stock markets and other commodities if confidence continues to return following the fall back in Southern European sovereign debt yields, the Goldman Sachs hearings and last Thursday's high-frequency trading blow-out. Additionally, the overhanging possibility of further bullion sales from the IMF remains. Cyclically, gold's seasonal window of superior performance is beginning to close. Close observers of the gold cycle will know that the 2008 peak occurred in March and the 2006 peak in May. Finally, the biggest long-term threats to the gold bull trend will be higher interest rates. One could add that gold is expensive for jewellery and industrial uses, which is true, but investment demand is the crucial variable today and mostly likely in future, at least until this secular bull trend ends.

Meanwhile, if gold experiences a similar numerical advance to what preceded those last two cyclical peaks mentioned above, it should rally to between $1300 and $1400 on this current move, as I have mentioned on occasion since the September 2009 breakout. A similar percentage move would carry higher still.

If you are interested in gold, one of the most important sections in the Library's dropdown menu is Relative Charts. Veteran subscribers will recall that gold does best when it is appreciating against all paper currencies. You would have expected gold to romp against weak sterling and the euro, and it has. More importantly, it has strengthened once again against this cycle's comparatively hard resources and Asian currencies such as: AUD, CAD, INR, SGD, ZAR (the break in lower rally highs could be important) and BRL. Pressing home an important point, here is gold in the Asian Dollar Index and Latin American Dollar Index. To show what can go wrong when there is no international confidence in a currency, here is gold in Venezuelan Bolivars (VEB). Remember when the Swiss franc was "as good as gold"? No more. I could post many more from the Library but you get the picture.

How is gold doing against stock markets? The key comparisons are with the USA. Here is the Dow/Gold Ratio and also the S&P in gold. They appear to be weakening within the current ranges. The Gold Bugs Index has lagged but new appears more likely to sustain a break above psychological and lateral resistance near 500.

My guess is that gold is no more than about halfway through its secular bull market, in terms of time. However this is certainly not a bankable forecast. I maintain that most very long-term forecasts are extremely inaccurate, mine included, and based on little more than trend extrapolations. My long-term view is based on the length of the previous secular bear market for gold (21 years) and earlier long-term commodity cycles. Last but certainly not least, there is the breathtaking issue concerning unprecedented printing of paper money by all countries or the central banks of their respective currency unions.

Another hunch, which I have mentioned before, is that gold will eventually end in a true bubble, characterised by the sort of dramatic upward acceleration not seen since 1979. That would be the Type-1 ending from TCS. Meanwhile, if seasonal factors are to be an influence this year, we could get a medium-term Type-1 peak in the next few weeks, as seen in May 2006, March 2008, and to a lesser extent and unseasonally, December 2009. First, however, I think gold would have to move to at least the $1300 to $1400 region, becoming more overstretched relative to the MA. There is a chance that the next medium-term peak will not occur until 2H 2010, due to the extensive reaction and consolidation recently completed. The charts will show us.

If none of this come to pass due to either my bad forecasting or some exogenous event, the first clear evidence of pattern deterioration would be a dramatic downward dynamic and / or break in the progression of higher reaction lows.