Executive Summary

• What the Great Gold Smash of 2013 tells us
• Was $1,075/oz gold the bottom? Is the bottom indeed in?
• Is a new bull trend ahead for precious metals?
• How to hedge against — and speculate on, for those who dare —  future manipulation attempts

If you have not yet read Part 1: EXCLUSIVE: The Smoking Gun Proving Silver & Gold Manipulation available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Now let's look at the great gold smash of 2013.

There were three separate operations I saw on or around the gold smash of 2013:

Operation #1: On April 12, gold had already broken below the 1525 support level to close at 1501 after dropping $100 over the two preceding months.  After a long decline followed by a support break, the market was in a very fragile state.  Sunday rolled around, and “someone” chose this moment to unload $95 in 13 volatility events over the course of just 13 hours.  This avalanche decisively drove gold down $150 in just one day.  This engineered follow-through using volatility events coming immediately after the support break resulted in the total annihilation of the longs.  Price still has not recovered from that move.

Operation #2: two days after the $150 drop, another 3-event $23 assault completely failed.  Price did not move at all.  In fact, it rallied on the day.  Why?  Why didn't we get another $150 drop?  Well, 1325 turned out to be strong support.  Buyers came out in droves to pick up the lower-priced gold.  And so when gold dropped $23 due to the volatility events, COMEX buyers snapped up the lower priced gold, and as a result the assault completely failed.

Operation #3: two months later, another 1-event $24 assault had only a very minor effect.  Price fell that day a few bucks, which was regained the day following.  Support was not quite as strong, but the market was clearly not in a fragile state at that point either.  This assault failed as well, since there was no support break and no price reset lower.

Here are three events, in relatively close proximity to one another, but under three different sets of “chart circumstances” which provided three different outcomes.  One worked, two others didn't.  The difference, I maintain, was where the market was at each point.  Fragile markets appear vulnerable to volatility events.  Strong markets are not.