The technical and fundamental reasons why gold could fall even lower
Gold slid about 2 percent Wednesday, hitting a nine-month low, as the surging U.S. dollar continues to exact a heavy toll on the yellow metal.
And at this point, technical analyst Craig Johnson of Piper Jaffray says he wouldn't be surprised to see gold prices fall all the way to $1,000 per troy ounce.
"What's happening is, we had a great relief rally that failed at $1,375," Johnson said Wednesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
In other words, despite the metal's substantial rise from the beginning of the year through July, the "downtrend resistance" has remained intact.
"It looks like we have further downside left to go in gold," said Johnson.
He sees the next layer of support as $1,050 to $1,000, a level that served as support in late 2015, and appeared to act as resistance in 2008 and 2009.
"We would continue to use any relief rallies to be lightening up on gold," he added.
Ironically, while gold is frequently said to serve as a hedge against inflation, it is inflation concerns that now appear to be hurting the metal.
The idea that President-elect Donald Trump's infrastructure plans will spur inflation leads to the secondary thought that the Federal Reservewill raise rates quickly so that inflation does not get out of hand.
And as rates rise, gold tends to get hit, both because rising rates make nonyielding gold look like a worse investment relative to bonds, and because rising rates tend to make the dollar more valuable, meaning that it should take few dollars to buy the same amount of gold.
Expectations that the U.S. central bank will raise rates rather quickly are moving the market, and "unless [Fed Chair] Janet Yellen tells us otherwise, we could continue to see gold fall, bonds rise and the U.S. dollar march higher," Kathy Lien of BK Asset Management said Wednesday on "Trading Nation."
Courtesy of cnbc.com