Currency Trade: Bearish view on the euro expressed via EuroUSD and CME euro futures, citing Europe's import dependence and terms-of-trade shock from higher energy and food costs; options overlays suggested to cap upside risk.
US Dollar: DXY showing a bull-flag with potential breakout above 100 toward 102–103, likely led by euro weakness and driven by flows and short covering.
Oil Markets: Elevated implied volatility with a pronounced right-tail risk; spreads favored to play upside scenarios while acknowledging sharp headline-driven swings.
Gold: Short-term pressured by higher yields and stronger dollar, but long-term fundamentals intact; framed as a buy-the-dip opportunity with caution around the 200-day moving average.
Uranium: Strong structural bull case with improving regulatory momentum; potential near-term drawdowns in uranium equities viewed as buy-the-dip opportunities while spot awaits a new catalyst.
Copper: Weak technicals below key moving averages signal soft global growth; further consolidation expected unless macro risks (e.g., Iran) quickly resolve.
Equities & Volatility: Elevated VIX and systematic deleveraging (CTAs, vol-targeting, risk parity) create downside risk with dealer gamma exposures amplifying selloffs absent a positive catalyst.
Rates & Credit: 10-year yields surged ~50 bps in March toward prior highs, adding credit stress; near-term risk of further upside in yields before stabilization.
Transcript
Listeners, we'll keep bringing on second guests [music] as conditions warrant until the Iran situation eventually settles down. Now, you're going to find the download link for this week's trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, it means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage and look for the red button over Lyn Alden's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick Lyn Alden laid out a compelling case that rising energy and food costs could create real stress for emerging markets, particularly those dependent on imports. Is there a clean way to express that view in today's market? Eric, the interesting thing is that I believe you don't actually have to go into traditional emerging markets to express this trade. In this environment, Europe starts to behave like a large import dependent economy where rising energy and food costs create a direct terms of trade shock. So the cleanest way to position for that is the currency, specifically the EuroUSD. If Lynn's thesis is right and those secondord inflation pressures continue to build, you should see sustained demand for dollars to fund those imports, which puts downside pressure on the euro. Now, for that to play out, you need energy prices to remain elevated and those supply side pressures to persist. If instead oil rolls over, supply chains normalize, or global growth stabilizes, then that pressure fades and the trade loses its edge. But as it stands, the EuroUSD is one of the most direct and liquid ways to express this macro view. Now, for more sophisticated traders, the cleanest way to express this is directly in the CME Euro futures. The June Euro future is currently trading around 1162, allowing for a pure short macro view on Euro downside tied to the terms of trade deterioration. But given the environment we're in with elevated geopolitical risk, policy uncertainty, and the everpresent potential for a sudden deescalation headline, it makes sense to pair that directional short with a defined risk hedge. One way to structure that is by overlaying a call spread. For example, by buying the May 8th expiration 117 call, which is trading around 75 pips, and selling the 120 call, roughly 15 pips, creating a 300 basis point widespread for a net cost of about 60 pips with approximately 43 days till expiration. That defines your upside risk over the near-term window where the headline risk is most elevated. on a $125,000 contract. The premium represents a relatively modest cost to cap exposure in the event that the euro rallies back towards the 120 highs. So, the idea here is to maintain a core short exposure on the euro while using options markets to define and contain the tail risk. essentially converting an open-ended short into a more institutional style riskmanaged position that can withstand adverse headline driven moves without forcing a premature exit. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive into the postgame chart deck. All right, Eric, let's talk about these equities. Patrick, the market breathed a huge sigh of relief on Monday after the 48 hour ultimatum postponement announcement from President Trump. And I'm not clear on why the market is breathing that sigh of relief. I don't think it's warranted. Monday's news flow was utterly insane. And frankly, the 5-day postponement of that 48-hour energy strike threat sounded to me like basically buying time to turn a bluff into a real strike. If anything, the only message that I've heard out of Iran or supposedly from Iran, we don't know what's really going on, as Michael Every said in the second interview, but the only messaging that I've seen coming out of Iran is they're denying that there are any talks that are open with the United States. They're vowing to uh fight to the end, and they're saying that there's not going to be any ceasefire. So, we're having a a breath of relief on the coming ceasefire when the other side says they're not even in talks about any ceasefire. Maybe I'm just getting fake news. That is very, very possible. There's lots of false information floating around, but I haven't seen the side of this where somebody in Iran is saying, "Yeah, we're looking forward to working this out with the United States and getting to a ceasefire." I I don't know why everybody is not concerned. I am not at all persuaded that the final bottom is in for equity markets. I'm hedged for lower lows and I'm kind of bracing myself for what this weekend might bring. Now, Eric, I always like to put things in context from a probabilities perspective at a volatility index up in the 27 handle. We're talking about a situation where we have daily implied ranges of 114 S&P points, which essentially means that these 100 point swings higher and lower that we see on an intraday basis are not technically significant. This is just normal volatility ranges. Overall, there's a very clean line in the sand for the bulls to neutralize the existing downtrend, which is the 50-day moving average lies around the 6,800, which was the trigger point for systematic selling to begin. We are now in systematic sell mode, which is all of those strategies, whether CTAs, voling funds or or risk parity funds are all under pressure to delever. And now with the JP Morgan whale option strike open at the 6475 level, there's a a huge gamma exposure down below, which would have the dealers having to sell futures into weakness in order to stay neutral the hedge. And so you have a scenario where if this market uh remains um in the in these lower levels, the path of least resistance is actually still a market to go lower. And um and we have to respect that. At this stage, I'm keeping it simple, which is either a some sort of a catalyst um needs to be introduced to create a meaningful turn or we're going to have to see some sort of a capitulation in the markets where uh a breakdown washes things out, gets things so oversold, forces all the margin calls that the only natural thing to follow would be uh a um a bull sequence on the upside. At this stage, there's no evidence of that catalyst. So we have to be very careful about the downside risks of the market on the short term from a technical perspective. All right, Eric, let's touch on that dollar. The last two weeks on the Dixie chart are looking more and more like a bull flag pattern. I think that kinetic escalation is likely in Iran, maybe as soon as this weekend. And that would likely bring a new higher high on the Dixie if it happens. I still see this eventually reversing lower and a downtrend resuming, but not until the conflict is resolved. And I don't think it's resolved yet. And I don't think it's about to be resolved in the the talks that are supposedly happening in the next couple of days. Well, Eric, when I look at this dollar index, I see the six-month trade range and this 100 level on the Dixie as being the key overhead level of this trade range with a bull flagging formation forming and us working our way back up to those highs. This is a moment where we could see a potential dollar breakout. And like we talked about in the trade of the week, it would almost certainly be led by a euro breakdown. So, will this break out is certainly the thing to watch. If the dollar index clears this 100 level with and these previous highs with any legitimate momentum, we could easily see a push to 102 103 purely on flows and short covering. It doesn't even need to have a fundamental reason to be happening. But we do certainly see the stresses that could be happening in the euro which happens to be the biggest weighted currency in this dollar index. All right, Eric, let's uh touch on oil here. Well, Patrick, anything is possible here. And frankly, this feels to me like the calm before the storm. There is plenty of room to see still a higher high in oil prices. We don't know how this situation is going to resolve yet. And I I'm hopeful that we'll see it all calm down soon. But unfortunately, I don't think that's the base case by any stretch of the imagination. Well, Eric, for me, the oil volatility does all the talking. We're at a 90% implied. I mean, we I guess we were as high as 120% implied on crude, but this uh this market is certainly still pricing in a pretty fat right tail on the SKS, which means that uh the dealers are still positioning for the risk that there could be an upside volatility move. Overall, this is one of the scenarios where maximum volatility has to be anticipated. I mean, we could be at uh $75, $80 or lower on one headline on WTI, but at the same time, uh we have a further escalation and real infrastructure damage in any way in the Middle East, and we could be north of 120. This is a very interesting time to be uh considering spread trades because at this stage uh with a right tail skew if you want to continue to play the upside of oil, you can have that on with these different types of spreads that actually have good payoff structures. But generally it is a a very challenging thing to just be long delta 1 on this because you have to be able to stomach some serious swings based on just the next headline. Nonetheless, oil's markets definitely still holding in that risk premium on the short term. All right, Eric, we got to talk gold. Like, what a crazy move we saw in the last week since we did the last episode. How do you size this up? Well, folks, you've heard me say several times in the last few weeks that I haven't heard a good explanation for why gold suddenly reversed its correlation and stopped acting as a geopolitical hedge at 11 p.m. on March 2nd, which is what happened. So, I spent last weekend digging uh with a little bit of help from AI and found some answers. The whole story is on my Substack at eric townsen.substack.com where I wrote a piece about what I think is going on with gold. Very briefly, the oil induced inflation signal pretty much ties the Fed's hands. It means that rate cuts are basically pulled completely off the table until this is resolved and oil is flowing normally through the straight of Hormuz. Higher yields compete with gold which of course yields zero. So the mechanism is pretty obvious here. The explanation for gold moving lower as the Dixie moves higher and the Fed's hands are tied taking the possibility of rate cuts off the table. It all spells an ugly technical picture for gold in the short run. But boy, what a setup. step back and ask yourself if the fundamentals have really changed here for gold in the bigger picture. Does this mean all of the sudden that central banks around the world that not in the United States are going to be more or less likely to want to trust the US dollar and US treasuries as their primary reserve asset? Is the whole world going to say, "Well, thanks to President Trump's ex excellent leadership in this uh Gulf conflict, we really are going to just put all of our eggs in that US Treasury basket from here on out." I don't think that's where this is headed, folks. Now, none of the big banks are reversing their uh targets for year-end prices on gold, which are around 6,000, depends on which bank you're talking to. So, despite this huge correction, they're not revising their targets lower. So, I think it's an absolutely incredible buy the dip opportunity. $6,000 gold is coming. But wait a minute. I think $3,000 gold is entirely possible if the Iran situation triggers a much higher Dixie and a much higher 10-year yield and a much higher oil price. And unfortunately, as much as all of those things happening at once is not the norm, these are not normal times. And I think all of those things happening at once is entirely possible. So the move here to make is buy the dip on gold. Buy it right at the bottom. Okay. The question then becomes when has it bottomed? Well, the 4,100 uh level which we hit the other day, the 200 day moving average was a huge line in the sand. The rejection off of that level was vigorous and we saw oil and gold trading in the same direction again for the first time since March 2nd, but it only lasted a couple of hours. So, there's a good argument to be made on a technical basis that the bottom might already be in at 4102, I think it was, was the low print. But if that 200 day moving average doesn't hold, anything is possible. And that would be the point because that line has not been crossed since 2023. trading below the 200 day average. If it does happen, you could see a whole lot of people abandoning their positions and we could see a wash out all the way down to 3,3500. Anything's possible. So again, the move here is if you can figure out how to buy the bottom of this correction on gold. That's the trade of the century. The question is when and what price the bottom in this gold market is actually going to occur. I don't know and neither do any of the people who pretend to. Well, I want to break it again down in a much more simple manner. There was a very distinct 2-year bull phase that blew off with a parabolic rise and a correction. We now decisively broke down after a failed rally attempt which is now putting gold in a distinct corrective pattern. Yes, those drivers you're talking about will be the ones that will contribute to the potential volatility. But what I would at this stage make very clear typically when you see these kind of tops and corrections begin they don't end in a week. And so uh what this pattern of of distribution can still be here going into the second quarter of the year. Overall maybe the downside is going to be much more contained as we've already seen some big drops. But in the bigger picture the primary trend now is down and we have to be anticipating uh that some short-term stresses to continue here. Uh and this is where being hedged up gold makes a whole lot of sense. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts here on uranium? >> Well, the fundamentals are still uber bullish and they're getting better by the day. And our friends at Alawat Atomics unveiled their first test reactor which they built in record time at their new facility in Idaho Falls. That's of course on the INL campus up there where they do all of the reactor testing and have for really the the whole history of nuclear energy. They expect first criticality. That means actually splitting atoms in their new reactor in the next couple of months. So this is moving incredibly quickly. Even the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, apparently shamed having been upstaged by the DOE under the leadership of Chris Wright, has announced the streamlining of licensing approval processes for advanced nuclear reactor technology. So even NRC is starting just barely to get its act together. Uh, I I still think that Chris Wright leading the DOE is setting the example. I I think he should take over or they should replace the NRC with something that's led by Chris Wright so that we could really get our act together and we're starting to see signs of that happening. So, the fundamentals couldn't possibly be better, but this is a very high beta sector. So if we see a major uh Iran induced negative event in the broader stock market, which I think is very possible, we're going to see uranium stocks take a nose dive. That's going to be a buy the dip opportunity. And just looking at the uranium price itself, it's been incredibly quiet for all the volatility we're seeing on almost every other commodity and asset. uh uranium is just quietly waiting for its next catalyst at this moment. I don't see any reason not to be bullish uh the U308, but it really is inactive at the moment and is not getting any attention on the short term. So, we're going to have to see when we have some sort of technical flow start to show some sort of uh new bull move underway, which is just not here now. And just touching on a few more things here, Eric, what's your thoughts here on copper? Well, we're well below the 50-day moving average now and not a whole lot of headroom left above the 200 day moving average. And if that 200 doesn't hold, and the Iran is clearly the key to that, you know, it's a signal that a global recession or even depression is not out of the question. And I I really think a lot of people are not fully understanding the magnitude of this straight of Hormuz situation. Yeah, there's lots of reasons to think that this will get resolved in the next couple of weeks. As Michael Every said, he expects that it likely will. But if this persists for months and months, and yeah, that's an outlier case. I I admit it. But if it were to p persist for months and months, the damage that it will do to the global economy is impossible to overstate. It could be utterly crippling to entire nations and the recovery from the damage that would occur if this continues for months and months would take years if not decades to fully recover from. So this is a really really big deal. We need to see this Iran situation get worked out so that traffic is moving through the straight of Hormuz and we need to see it happen quickly. uh copper and the S&P and uh lots of other things are all approaching very critical levels and if those levels don't hold it's a sign that the markets think that the situation in Iran is not going to be timely resolved and that really spells very very grim outlooks for the global economy. I'm sorry to be so gloomy folks but this is a really big deal. Well certainly copper remains weak. I was talking about last week the correlation between copper and precious metals which uh I'm not sure even fully why it's happening but overall copper has uh started to deteriorate in a in a correction mode and so uh at this stage I don't see any reason why this has to bullishly reverse here on the short term basically anticipate a little bit deeper consolidation here in the weeks to come. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's show, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. What a move it's been for the month of March. I mean, we had that bullish engulfing candle come off of a retest of the 395 level in the first days of March, and since then, we've seen a 50 basis point swing in the 10-year yield, causing all sorts of stresses in the credit markets. This trend is now in place. The bigger question is where does this stall out? uh all of the previous highs uh from 2025 were all in that kind of 4 1.5 to 460 level on the upside. On the short term, there could continue to be a little bit of stress on yields. Overall, I think that this should be contained, but uh it certainly on the short term has another 10 or 20 basis points risk until it really has a support line to stabilize. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Bigpictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview as well as the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. So, that does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners, and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email at researchroundup@macrovoices.com and we'll consider it for our weekly distributions. 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Trade of The Week – MacroVoices #525
Summary
Transcript
Listeners, we'll keep bringing on second guests [music] as conditions warrant until the Iran situation eventually settles down. Now, you're going to find the download link for this week's trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, it means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage and look for the red button over Lyn Alden's picture saying looking for the downloads. Patrick Lyn Alden laid out a compelling case that rising energy and food costs could create real stress for emerging markets, particularly those dependent on imports. Is there a clean way to express that view in today's market? Eric, the interesting thing is that I believe you don't actually have to go into traditional emerging markets to express this trade. In this environment, Europe starts to behave like a large import dependent economy where rising energy and food costs create a direct terms of trade shock. So the cleanest way to position for that is the currency, specifically the EuroUSD. If Lynn's thesis is right and those secondord inflation pressures continue to build, you should see sustained demand for dollars to fund those imports, which puts downside pressure on the euro. Now, for that to play out, you need energy prices to remain elevated and those supply side pressures to persist. If instead oil rolls over, supply chains normalize, or global growth stabilizes, then that pressure fades and the trade loses its edge. But as it stands, the EuroUSD is one of the most direct and liquid ways to express this macro view. Now, for more sophisticated traders, the cleanest way to express this is directly in the CME Euro futures. The June Euro future is currently trading around 1162, allowing for a pure short macro view on Euro downside tied to the terms of trade deterioration. But given the environment we're in with elevated geopolitical risk, policy uncertainty, and the everpresent potential for a sudden deescalation headline, it makes sense to pair that directional short with a defined risk hedge. One way to structure that is by overlaying a call spread. For example, by buying the May 8th expiration 117 call, which is trading around 75 pips, and selling the 120 call, roughly 15 pips, creating a 300 basis point widespread for a net cost of about 60 pips with approximately 43 days till expiration. That defines your upside risk over the near-term window where the headline risk is most elevated. on a $125,000 contract. The premium represents a relatively modest cost to cap exposure in the event that the euro rallies back towards the 120 highs. So, the idea here is to maintain a core short exposure on the euro while using options markets to define and contain the tail risk. essentially converting an open-ended short into a more institutional style riskmanaged position that can withstand adverse headline driven moves without forcing a premature exit. Patrick, every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14-day free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Now, let's dive into the postgame chart deck. All right, Eric, let's talk about these equities. Patrick, the market breathed a huge sigh of relief on Monday after the 48 hour ultimatum postponement announcement from President Trump. And I'm not clear on why the market is breathing that sigh of relief. I don't think it's warranted. Monday's news flow was utterly insane. And frankly, the 5-day postponement of that 48-hour energy strike threat sounded to me like basically buying time to turn a bluff into a real strike. If anything, the only message that I've heard out of Iran or supposedly from Iran, we don't know what's really going on, as Michael Every said in the second interview, but the only messaging that I've seen coming out of Iran is they're denying that there are any talks that are open with the United States. They're vowing to uh fight to the end, and they're saying that there's not going to be any ceasefire. So, we're having a a breath of relief on the coming ceasefire when the other side says they're not even in talks about any ceasefire. Maybe I'm just getting fake news. That is very, very possible. There's lots of false information floating around, but I haven't seen the side of this where somebody in Iran is saying, "Yeah, we're looking forward to working this out with the United States and getting to a ceasefire." I I don't know why everybody is not concerned. I am not at all persuaded that the final bottom is in for equity markets. I'm hedged for lower lows and I'm kind of bracing myself for what this weekend might bring. Now, Eric, I always like to put things in context from a probabilities perspective at a volatility index up in the 27 handle. We're talking about a situation where we have daily implied ranges of 114 S&P points, which essentially means that these 100 point swings higher and lower that we see on an intraday basis are not technically significant. This is just normal volatility ranges. Overall, there's a very clean line in the sand for the bulls to neutralize the existing downtrend, which is the 50-day moving average lies around the 6,800, which was the trigger point for systematic selling to begin. We are now in systematic sell mode, which is all of those strategies, whether CTAs, voling funds or or risk parity funds are all under pressure to delever. And now with the JP Morgan whale option strike open at the 6475 level, there's a a huge gamma exposure down below, which would have the dealers having to sell futures into weakness in order to stay neutral the hedge. And so you have a scenario where if this market uh remains um in the in these lower levels, the path of least resistance is actually still a market to go lower. And um and we have to respect that. At this stage, I'm keeping it simple, which is either a some sort of a catalyst um needs to be introduced to create a meaningful turn or we're going to have to see some sort of a capitulation in the markets where uh a breakdown washes things out, gets things so oversold, forces all the margin calls that the only natural thing to follow would be uh a um a bull sequence on the upside. At this stage, there's no evidence of that catalyst. So we have to be very careful about the downside risks of the market on the short term from a technical perspective. All right, Eric, let's touch on that dollar. The last two weeks on the Dixie chart are looking more and more like a bull flag pattern. I think that kinetic escalation is likely in Iran, maybe as soon as this weekend. And that would likely bring a new higher high on the Dixie if it happens. I still see this eventually reversing lower and a downtrend resuming, but not until the conflict is resolved. And I don't think it's resolved yet. And I don't think it's about to be resolved in the the talks that are supposedly happening in the next couple of days. Well, Eric, when I look at this dollar index, I see the six-month trade range and this 100 level on the Dixie as being the key overhead level of this trade range with a bull flagging formation forming and us working our way back up to those highs. This is a moment where we could see a potential dollar breakout. And like we talked about in the trade of the week, it would almost certainly be led by a euro breakdown. So, will this break out is certainly the thing to watch. If the dollar index clears this 100 level with and these previous highs with any legitimate momentum, we could easily see a push to 102 103 purely on flows and short covering. It doesn't even need to have a fundamental reason to be happening. But we do certainly see the stresses that could be happening in the euro which happens to be the biggest weighted currency in this dollar index. All right, Eric, let's uh touch on oil here. Well, Patrick, anything is possible here. And frankly, this feels to me like the calm before the storm. There is plenty of room to see still a higher high in oil prices. We don't know how this situation is going to resolve yet. And I I'm hopeful that we'll see it all calm down soon. But unfortunately, I don't think that's the base case by any stretch of the imagination. Well, Eric, for me, the oil volatility does all the talking. We're at a 90% implied. I mean, we I guess we were as high as 120% implied on crude, but this uh this market is certainly still pricing in a pretty fat right tail on the SKS, which means that uh the dealers are still positioning for the risk that there could be an upside volatility move. Overall, this is one of the scenarios where maximum volatility has to be anticipated. I mean, we could be at uh $75, $80 or lower on one headline on WTI, but at the same time, uh we have a further escalation and real infrastructure damage in any way in the Middle East, and we could be north of 120. This is a very interesting time to be uh considering spread trades because at this stage uh with a right tail skew if you want to continue to play the upside of oil, you can have that on with these different types of spreads that actually have good payoff structures. But generally it is a a very challenging thing to just be long delta 1 on this because you have to be able to stomach some serious swings based on just the next headline. Nonetheless, oil's markets definitely still holding in that risk premium on the short term. All right, Eric, we got to talk gold. Like, what a crazy move we saw in the last week since we did the last episode. How do you size this up? Well, folks, you've heard me say several times in the last few weeks that I haven't heard a good explanation for why gold suddenly reversed its correlation and stopped acting as a geopolitical hedge at 11 p.m. on March 2nd, which is what happened. So, I spent last weekend digging uh with a little bit of help from AI and found some answers. The whole story is on my Substack at eric townsen.substack.com where I wrote a piece about what I think is going on with gold. Very briefly, the oil induced inflation signal pretty much ties the Fed's hands. It means that rate cuts are basically pulled completely off the table until this is resolved and oil is flowing normally through the straight of Hormuz. Higher yields compete with gold which of course yields zero. So the mechanism is pretty obvious here. The explanation for gold moving lower as the Dixie moves higher and the Fed's hands are tied taking the possibility of rate cuts off the table. It all spells an ugly technical picture for gold in the short run. But boy, what a setup. step back and ask yourself if the fundamentals have really changed here for gold in the bigger picture. Does this mean all of the sudden that central banks around the world that not in the United States are going to be more or less likely to want to trust the US dollar and US treasuries as their primary reserve asset? Is the whole world going to say, "Well, thanks to President Trump's ex excellent leadership in this uh Gulf conflict, we really are going to just put all of our eggs in that US Treasury basket from here on out." I don't think that's where this is headed, folks. Now, none of the big banks are reversing their uh targets for year-end prices on gold, which are around 6,000, depends on which bank you're talking to. So, despite this huge correction, they're not revising their targets lower. So, I think it's an absolutely incredible buy the dip opportunity. $6,000 gold is coming. But wait a minute. I think $3,000 gold is entirely possible if the Iran situation triggers a much higher Dixie and a much higher 10-year yield and a much higher oil price. And unfortunately, as much as all of those things happening at once is not the norm, these are not normal times. And I think all of those things happening at once is entirely possible. So the move here to make is buy the dip on gold. Buy it right at the bottom. Okay. The question then becomes when has it bottomed? Well, the 4,100 uh level which we hit the other day, the 200 day moving average was a huge line in the sand. The rejection off of that level was vigorous and we saw oil and gold trading in the same direction again for the first time since March 2nd, but it only lasted a couple of hours. So, there's a good argument to be made on a technical basis that the bottom might already be in at 4102, I think it was, was the low print. But if that 200 day moving average doesn't hold, anything is possible. And that would be the point because that line has not been crossed since 2023. trading below the 200 day average. If it does happen, you could see a whole lot of people abandoning their positions and we could see a wash out all the way down to 3,3500. Anything's possible. So again, the move here is if you can figure out how to buy the bottom of this correction on gold. That's the trade of the century. The question is when and what price the bottom in this gold market is actually going to occur. I don't know and neither do any of the people who pretend to. Well, I want to break it again down in a much more simple manner. There was a very distinct 2-year bull phase that blew off with a parabolic rise and a correction. We now decisively broke down after a failed rally attempt which is now putting gold in a distinct corrective pattern. Yes, those drivers you're talking about will be the ones that will contribute to the potential volatility. But what I would at this stage make very clear typically when you see these kind of tops and corrections begin they don't end in a week. And so uh what this pattern of of distribution can still be here going into the second quarter of the year. Overall maybe the downside is going to be much more contained as we've already seen some big drops. But in the bigger picture the primary trend now is down and we have to be anticipating uh that some short-term stresses to continue here. Uh and this is where being hedged up gold makes a whole lot of sense. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts here on uranium? >> Well, the fundamentals are still uber bullish and they're getting better by the day. And our friends at Alawat Atomics unveiled their first test reactor which they built in record time at their new facility in Idaho Falls. That's of course on the INL campus up there where they do all of the reactor testing and have for really the the whole history of nuclear energy. They expect first criticality. That means actually splitting atoms in their new reactor in the next couple of months. So this is moving incredibly quickly. Even the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, apparently shamed having been upstaged by the DOE under the leadership of Chris Wright, has announced the streamlining of licensing approval processes for advanced nuclear reactor technology. So even NRC is starting just barely to get its act together. Uh, I I still think that Chris Wright leading the DOE is setting the example. I I think he should take over or they should replace the NRC with something that's led by Chris Wright so that we could really get our act together and we're starting to see signs of that happening. So, the fundamentals couldn't possibly be better, but this is a very high beta sector. So if we see a major uh Iran induced negative event in the broader stock market, which I think is very possible, we're going to see uranium stocks take a nose dive. That's going to be a buy the dip opportunity. And just looking at the uranium price itself, it's been incredibly quiet for all the volatility we're seeing on almost every other commodity and asset. uh uranium is just quietly waiting for its next catalyst at this moment. I don't see any reason not to be bullish uh the U308, but it really is inactive at the moment and is not getting any attention on the short term. So, we're going to have to see when we have some sort of technical flow start to show some sort of uh new bull move underway, which is just not here now. And just touching on a few more things here, Eric, what's your thoughts here on copper? Well, we're well below the 50-day moving average now and not a whole lot of headroom left above the 200 day moving average. And if that 200 doesn't hold, and the Iran is clearly the key to that, you know, it's a signal that a global recession or even depression is not out of the question. And I I really think a lot of people are not fully understanding the magnitude of this straight of Hormuz situation. Yeah, there's lots of reasons to think that this will get resolved in the next couple of weeks. As Michael Every said, he expects that it likely will. But if this persists for months and months, and yeah, that's an outlier case. I I admit it. But if it were to p persist for months and months, the damage that it will do to the global economy is impossible to overstate. It could be utterly crippling to entire nations and the recovery from the damage that would occur if this continues for months and months would take years if not decades to fully recover from. So this is a really really big deal. We need to see this Iran situation get worked out so that traffic is moving through the straight of Hormuz and we need to see it happen quickly. uh copper and the S&P and uh lots of other things are all approaching very critical levels and if those levels don't hold it's a sign that the markets think that the situation in Iran is not going to be timely resolved and that really spells very very grim outlooks for the global economy. I'm sorry to be so gloomy folks but this is a really big deal. Well certainly copper remains weak. I was talking about last week the correlation between copper and precious metals which uh I'm not sure even fully why it's happening but overall copper has uh started to deteriorate in a in a correction mode and so uh at this stage I don't see any reason why this has to bullishly reverse here on the short term basically anticipate a little bit deeper consolidation here in the weeks to come. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's show, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. What a move it's been for the month of March. I mean, we had that bullish engulfing candle come off of a retest of the 395 level in the first days of March, and since then, we've seen a 50 basis point swing in the 10-year yield, causing all sorts of stresses in the credit markets. This trend is now in place. The bigger question is where does this stall out? uh all of the previous highs uh from 2025 were all in that kind of 4 1.5 to 460 level on the upside. On the short term, there could continue to be a little bit of stress on yields. Overall, I think that this should be contained, but uh it certainly on the short term has another 10 or 20 basis points risk until it really has a support line to stabilize. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Bigpictur Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview as well as the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. So, that does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners, and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email at researchroundup@macrovoices.com and we'll consider it for our weekly distributions. 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