Gold's Still Glittering This Fall

As the broad market continues to ride its best year-to-date performance in more than two decades, investors who haven't been paying close attention may be surprised to discover that 2019 has also been a stellar year for gold.

While gold isn't having quite the historic run that we're seeing in equities so far this year, it's not for lack of performance - metal prices simply surged higher faster, back in 2016.

The popular SPDR Gold Trust (GLD - Get Report) is up 18.6% since the calendar flipped to January, nearly keeping pace with the 19.44% price appreciation that the S&P 500 has managed to achieve so far this year.

And gold's run could be far from over.

As we round the corner to October, gold (and gold miners) are continuing to show off bullish price action. To figure out how to trade it, we're turning to the charts for a technical look.

Up first, it makes sense to look at GLD, which tracks spot gold prices. At a glance, it doesn't take much of a trained eye to see that GLD kicked off a major change in trend back at the start of June, switching from a sustained downtrend to a well-defined uptrending channel.

So far, every test of trendline support has provided a relatively low-risk, high-reward buying opportunity for gold. And now, as gold prices test that support level for a third time during this rally, the odds point to higher ground.

Meanwhile, that bullish positioning is even more pronounced in some gold miners.

Case in point: Kinross Gold (KGC - Get Report) .

Kinross is arguably the most technically bullish gold stock right now. Shares participated in gold's early-summer rally, and they've been holding strong during September's short-term correction, pressing to new highs while most peers have been testing trendline support. That relative strength makes Kinross look comparatively attractive right now.

Shares have spent the last two months forming a pretty textbook example of an ascending triangle pattern, a bullish continuation pattern that Kinross broke out above in Monday's trading session, clearing the way for more upside. Simply put, now looks like as good a time as any to start building a position in this gold miner.

The 50-day moving average has been acting like a solid proxy for the bottom of Kinross' uptrend since early in the rally. That makes it a logical place to park a protective stop below, if you decide to take this trade.