Gold Miners Have More Upside Ahead

Gold is glittering this winter - and everyone's favorite precious metal could have even further to run in the sessions ahead.

After a run of underperformance, gold prices have managed to find bottom and move higher in the last six months, the ever-popular SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) is up about 9% since the end of August.

But there's mounting evidence that gold could have even further to rally (and there's an even better way to play it right now).

One of the best ways to play the gold trade here is with gold miners.

That's because gold mining stocks are effectively a leveraged bet on gold prices - as the value of gold moves further above a miner's cost of production, profitability scales up dramatically.

Gold miners have actually looked strong from a technical standpoint since last fall.

Sure enough, over the same six-month stretch as gold prices, the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) , which tracks a basket of 49 different publicly traded gold mining stocks has surged just over 17% on a total returns basis. Compare that against a 2.8% drop in the S&P 500 over that timeframe.

In short, owning gold miners would have completely sidestepped the painful rally elsewhere in the stock market.

To figure out how to trade gold and gold miners from here, we're turning to the chart:

The chart above is GDX, but GLD's technical setup looks almost identical right now - albeit a little less volatile.

It doesn't take a trading expert to figure out what's happening on this chart; in fact, the price action is about as straightforward as it gets. Shares of GDX have been bouncing their way higher in a well-defined uptrend, catching a bid on every test of support since the beginning of September.

Now, this ETF is starting to look over-extended a bit, hovering near trendline resistance. But the key takeaway is that this is a "buy the dips trend", not a red flag. If you're looking to boost your position in gold (be it through GDX, GLD, or some other vehicle), it makes sense to add more on the next successful test of trendline support, currently at $21 for GDX.

Typically, gold is seen as a contra-asset for stocks. In other words, investors use it as insurance against market-shaking events. But the prospect of a gold rally doesn't contradict the likelihood of a continued stock rally in 2019.

Gold and stocks can and do move in step with one another from time to time. It looks like we're entering one of those regimes right now.

As long as the uptrend in gold prices from September's lows holds, it makes sense to keep on buying the dips in gold and miners.