From today's Gartman Letter...... (9-23)

"Turning to gold, firstly we note… thanks to our old friend John Brimelow… that the weekly ECB statement shows that “gold and gold receivables” fell by 2.48 tonnes last week, due to gold sales by one captive, or “legacy,” central bank there. This is up from the 2.62 tonnes sold the previous week, but even when aggregated these remain far below the “average” weekly gold sales that these banks could sell were they eager to do so under the Washington Agreement. As John notes, wryly, “Apparently one ECB CB has a modest sales program underway.”

All we know with reasonable certainty is that the trend for gold is higher in all currencies, and that there is someone or something with some sense of intent trying to keep gold from plowing upward through $1020-1030, and thus far they’ve succeeded. Too, there seems to be some intent… and thus far some success… in keeping gold beneath €700, for it has touched that level several times over the course of the past two or three weeks and has failed to push through. Rather than watch for gold to push through $1030, we would counsel everyone to watch gold at the €700 level, for a break upward through there shall be far more significant in our view, for it will mean that gold is indeed in a global, catholic bull market, not a parochial dollar one.

The same, however, cannot be said of gold prices in terms of Sterling, for example, for as is evident from the chart at the upper left of p.1, Gold/Sterling’s history is to advance, then consolidate; then advance again; then consolidate and then advance again. Having “consolidated” since late January-early February following its run from £440 to £700 that took only a few weeks, it has consolidate or corrected by falling back to £550 where strong… indeed very strong… support was evident. As we write, gold is trading £620 and our target on this run is to new highs, taking out the high of £700 noted just above."