"Is it reasonable to assume that even though gold may break its 10 year trend and top, and see a deeper downside correction, that the secular bull trend is not over? That the bubble might burst later when interest rates are higher, and the charts will show a steeper acceleration to the top?

"Safety conscious notables like Tim Price and Marc Faber recommend something like 25% asset allocation. In the event of a deeper correction, how deep may that be one wonders, and should investors with significant holdings in gold consider pruning should a correction be confirmed? Your opinion, always well considered, is appreciated. Ok, the truth is I'm off for a month to South East Asia for the first time and I would rather pay attention to Gaeng Keow Wan Kai (Green Chicken Curry) or Tsingtao than the markets. Thank you,"

David Fuller's view I certainly hope that you are able to enjoy all the wonderful South East Asian delicacies, free of market worries. I also thank you for this informed email, which is certain to be of interest to many other visitors to this site.

The scenario that you describe in your first paragraph is in line with what I have also long expected - higher interest rates would eventually end gold's secular bull trend. However, you will appreciate that when a long-term trend loses most of its consistency characteristics, the more bullish forecast on which it was based loses much of its supporting technical evidence.

In other words, while fundamentals produce the big trend, its consistency characteristics and the eventual question of how high is too high to be sustained will be determined by the players. Since gold's high in 2011, more of the players have been drifting away from the bull side and a number are currently short. This is creating the conditions for an eventual rally of significance but the questions - of when, from what level, and of what duration - are now more difficult because gold has been moving off piste in terms of its consistency characteristics.

Crowd perceptions frequently change and recently, gold has moved down the pecking order in terms of global beauty contest perceptions which have favoured equities, although not yet mining shares which also continue to underperform.

As a consequence, gold is technically oversold while testing its range lows. However, a strong rally is required to frighten shorts, reconfirm support at current levels, and attract renewed demand. If there are bullish commonality indicators, they are the superior performance of platinum and particularly palladium, while silver is slightly steadier than gold in terms of its range lows.