Following an avalanche of bearish articles and forecasts for gold from the financial media and Wall Street "research" analysts in early November near the exact bottom in gold prices, a few brave souls have finally surfaced in support of the yellow metal this week. Barron's Magazine is front and center now with two recent articles that strongly suggest that a major bottom may now be in place for gold and precious metals mining shares. Links to these articles are attached here.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am long precious metals mining shares and short the S&P 500 Index.

I think it may be noteworthy that the price of gold was up more than 1% last week despite the fact that the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) was also up sharply (+0.89%) on the week. The U.S. Dollar Index is now up 11.91% since May 9th, 2014 (see chart below), but gold prices have remained resilient against the backdrop of the most negative sentiment that I have ever witnessed in my 36-year career in the securities industry.

Was November 7th THE major bottom in gold and silver prices? Yes, I think so!

Will Swiss voters approve the Swiss Gold Referendum on November 30th? Based upon everything that I have read about this issue (and all the latest poll information), I believe that the outcome here is a "toss up" right now. However, in a surprise move, the Netherlands announced last week that it has repatriated 122.47 tonnes of gold from the vaults of the Federal Reserve in New York to the Dutch Central Bank in Amsterdam. This is approximately 4 million ounces valued at about $5 billion. Officially, the Dutch Central Bank said that this repatriation was just part of a larger re-balancing of where its gold was stored. Unofficially, it's not hard to imagine that the Dutch Central Bank has a diminished level of confidence in the U.S. Federal Reserve and that maybe Netherlands is better off having its own gold stored on its own soil. Could this timely announcement by the Dutch Central Bank have any impact on the Swiss Gold Referendum? Perhaps YES! More importantly, however, I strongly believe that even a "No" vote on this key referendum will NOT derail the current rally in gold prices which began on November 7th. And in my view, a "YES" vote on the Swiss Gold Referendum will result in at least a 10% surge in gold prices over the very near term (before the end of this year)!

In terms of the potential outcome, why is the Swiss Gold Referendum different than the Scottish Vote For Independence? Many uninformed research analysts, gold naysayers, and inexperienced journalists in the financial press are comparing the upcoming Swiss Gold Referendum with the recent failed Vote for Scottish Independence. The outcome will be the same they claim, with the "NO" votes prevailing. Swiss Nation Bank (SNB) President Thomas Jordan was out in full force this morning (11/23) strongly suggesting that "The [gold] initiative is dangerous because it would weaken the SNB". Of course, that's the whole point of the Swiss Gold Referendum! The SNB has been printing money at a pace equal to or greater than the U.S. Federal Reserve over the last 5 1/2 years. Interventions by the SNB in the foreign exchange market to effectively "cap" the Swiss Franc against the Euro at 1.20 have resulted in serious ongoing devaluation of the Swiss Franc.The Swiss Gold Referendum won't stop this outrageous and ill-fated action, but it WILL slow it down! The Vote For Scotland's Independence failed because the people of Scotland were threatened using heavy-handed tactics. Older people were actually told they would lose their pensions. Business owners were told they would lose all of their international business (and also business within the UK) because the Bank of England said it would not allow an independent Scotland to use the British Pound as it currency. Almost the entire "No" vote on Scottish Independence came from voters over the age of 55! However, most of the threats that were used to defeat the Scottish Independence Vote are irrelevant and don't apply with respect to the Swiss Gold Referendum. While the Swiss people ARE being told by the SNB and Swiss central government officials that the Swiss economy will suffer and that Swiss unemployment will rise significantly if the "YES" vote prevails, it is my strong view that Swiss voters will see through these trumped up threats of disaster, discount them appropriately, and then seriously consider a "YES" vote to this key Gold Referendum.

The following charts are attached for your review, with all signals from my computer-based trading system reflected on each chart:

1. Gold ETF (GLD) Weekly Chart
2. Gold ETF (GLD) Monthly Chart
3. Silver ETF (SLV) Weekly Chart
4. Silver ETF (SLV) Monthly Chart
5. Pan American Silver shares (symbol PAAS) Monthly Chart
6. S&P 500 Index ETF (SPY) Weekly Chart
7. U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) Weekly Chart
8. U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) Monthly Chart

Recent Gold-related articles in Barron's Magazine: