David Fuller's view Last night, having spent my Easter Monday holiday watching a recording of Wagner's Ring Cycle from Valencia's spectacular Reina Sofia Palace of the Arts, shown on Sky Arts, I logged on to order the DVD. If you intend to watch only one Ring Cycle in your entire life (oh go on), this is the one that I recommend for what I also regard as the greatest story ever told. Thereafter, on seeing that gold, which is much fought over throughout the Ring Cycle (weekly 10-yr, weekly 5-yr & daily) and the other precious metals were firm, I introduced some in-the-money stops and placed a limit order for the yellow metal which was filled this morning at $1130 for the June position, including spread-bet dealing costs, currently at 60¢. This increased my total position by 12.5%.


As recently mentioned, the risks with this trade are that gold may continue to lag because of the IMF's remaining sales, for which I have not yet heard a completion announcement. Also, some investors may be drifting away from gold because of remaining concerns over the reliability of bullion ETFs, plus competition from in-form stock markets. Lastly, given the continued correlation between equities and commodities, a stock market reaction could easily confine gold to its present range for a while longer.

However, if gold is to experience a further and similar-sized advance relative to the September 2005 and 2007 gains, which would take it to at least $1350 during this medium-term cycle within the secular bull market, it should do so soon, while seasonal factors remain favourable and before the next cycle of higher short-term interest rates is underway globally. There are no 'money back guarantees' in markets so I will trade these leveraged futures positions conservatively, behind trailing stops.