David Fuller's view It remains tough out there in trading land, at least for this participant who would like to catch the next recovery in precious metals, plus a reflation in Japan worthy of the name, among other possibilities.

Commencing with the latter, I more than gave up this year's earlier trading profits in JGBs (weekly & daily) and the Nikkei (weekly & daily) but decided to roll the positions forward because the former appear to be losing upside momentum and the latter was oversold and near the bottom of the range. Consequently, my expiring June JGBs shorts at 141.51 and 141.70 on 21st March and 141.90 on the 28th were bought in at 143.62 on 7th June, while new shorts in the September contract were opened at 143.356. My expiring June Nikkei long purchased at 9612.5 on 12th April was sold at 8650 and a September long simultaneously opened at 8681.

In my last Audio on 30th May, before taking a short break, I mentioned that gold (weekly & daily) and silver (weekly & daily) had bounced off lows with a hint of 'haven' rather than 'risk off' status. It is my contention that the lows for this lengthy medium-term correction in precious metals will be confirmed by price action when investors once again reassess them as safe havens. In fact, this change in perceptions will be necessary if gold is to resume its secular uptrend as I expect circa 2013.

Following a long drive on Friday 1st June, I was pleasantly surprised to see that gold had rallied over $60 during an otherwise risk-off day. I decided to double my small silver long stake before the close of trading and paid $28.455 for an additional July position. When silver surged up out of its small range on 6th June I introduced slightly in-the-money stops, hoping I had given this latest addition and also my earlier silver purchase at $28.255 on 25th May sufficient breathing room in the event the break-out was maintained and extended. It was not to be and stops were triggered on the 7th at $28.35 for the trade immediately above and $28.538 for the other position. I bought one of these back at $28.285 on the 8th and this was stopped out today at $28.35. I want to catch the next sustainable uptrend but once again it would have been better to grab short-term profits in this environment rather than use breakeven or slightly in-the-money stops for money control purposes.

I also bought more gold on 6th June, paying $1635.2 for another August position which I still hold. However, my earlier rollover purchase at $1559.98 on 24th May was stopped out at $1580 on 7th June. I repurchased this at the slightly lower price of $1579.6 on 8th June. I also bought palladium (weekly & daily) and more platinum (weekly & daily) on 6th June, paying $626.75 and $1462 for September and July positions, respectively. I still hold these positions but my platinum purchase at $1434.20 on 24th May was stopped out at $1438.

Prices above include all spread-bet dealing costs.

I do think we are in a bottoming out and support building phase for precious metals. Nevertheless, this will not be confirmed technically until new uptrends characterised by rising lows are established, and the medium-term downtrends' sequences of lower highs are broken. That development will be more conducive to trend running. Meanwhile, I will endeavour to buy the dips and hopefully take some profits on rallies while the mainly ranging activity persists.