Gold Market Sees Shakeout on Its Way

As expected in my earlier column titled Gold Prices Set to Decline on Vaccine Shocks, positive news of Covid-19 vaccines continues to hit gold prices. All eyes now turn to when exactly the vaccination will be available. The FDA has scheduled a meeting on Dec. 10 to discuss the request for emergency use authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer. Once receiving the approval, a mass vaccination campaign will start on Dec. 11, at the soonest.

Not only the two US pharmaceutical companies, a British drugmaker has also successfully developed the vaccine. The UK is on track to start vaccine roll-out by the end of December. By this account, countries in the US and Europe - the epicenters of the pandemic - will launch accessible vaccines for all in the first two quarters of next year, paving the way for normal economic activities. In this case, shakeouts for gold and silver are just around the corner once central banks take less accommodative measures, such as ceasing the program of quantitative easing (QE).

In 2013, the Fed was poised for the market exit amid the full economic recovery, while Europe and Japan were gearing up for a QE program by increasing the money supply. Bulls at the time strongly believed that gold prices would rocket amid new rounds of QE from the ECB and BoJ, despite the Fed's market exit. Contrary to what they expected, gold prices were set to retreat in this context.

Gold prices were not able to bottom out until December 2015, when the Fed confirmed to raise the interest rate. The reversal in gold occurred at this point because only then was the news of market exit and rate hike priced in. It is expected the Fed, RBNZ and RBA will take the lead in reducing QE and take the first step to exit the market next year.

With that said, central banks' cut in QE will deliver a lethal blow to gold prices. The key support underpinning the short-term gold will vanish soon after the rally. While the moving averages could signal the topside resistance and downside support, investors can refer to the RSI to deploy trading strategies if not clear about gold prices' bottom level or oversold level.