GOLD Year-to-Date Performance: How High Can It Go?

GOLD is up 66% year to date, but the headline performance only scratches the surface. The current advance is defined by structure, not momentum alone. Price has consistently respected long-term trend metrics, with repeated accumulation phases and controlled pullbacks that continue to resolve higher. Rather than signaling exhaustion, these behaviors align with historical bull-market continuation patterns.

This article focuses on the technical framework underpinning GOLD’s move. We will examine the role of the bull market support band as a regime-defining tool—how price has oscillated around it during accumulation, how crossings of the band have historically coincided with local tops, and how the current cycle compares. We will analyze the frequency and significance of 50/51-week moving average retests, contrasting the 2000s bull market with the 1970s cycle to highlight differences between early, mid, and late-stage bull behavior.

We will also address second-derivative trend signals as a lagging confirmation mechanism for major tops, showing why they are useful for validation rather than prediction—and why, at present, they offer no evidence that the trend is complete. Finally, we will assess the near-term technical roadmap and explore whether historical analogs suggest the formation of a local top in the February–March window, or if the market remains in a consolidation phase consistent with further upside.

The goal is not to call a top, but to define the conditions under which one would become technically probable—and to clarify what the current data is, and is not, signaling.

GOLD Technical Analysis

GOLD has repeatedly entered consolidation phases after impulsive advances, drifting back toward the bull market support band rather than breaking below it. These pauses reflect absorption of supply and structural accumulation, reinforcing the broader uptrend rather than signaling distribution.

Historically, local tops have tended to form once the bull market support band crosses (20/21-week moving averages) above prior resistance. This shift often marks a transition from expansion to mean reversion, as trend support becomes overextended relative to price. Remarkably, once the bull market support band crosses above prior resistance, the top was often in within a few weeks.

During the 2000s GOLD bull market, price regularly revisited the 50-week SMA and 51-week EMA moving averages. These pullbacks were corrective rather than bearish, serving as reset points that sustained the trend over a prolonged period. In the current cycle, GOLD has not revisited the 50/51-week moving averages making it overly extended compared to prior times. While this endangers the continuation of the trend, in a sharp downturn, it could also serve as a potential buying opportunity before it goes higher. There is a time-based component to keep in mind since the current bull cycle has been going on only for a few years (and GOLD tends to spend a decade or so in an uptrend) and depending on the timing of the retest, the interpretation changes too. An earlier retest favors a good buying opportunity while a later retest could more indicative of a dead cat bounce and the end of the bull market. Right now, it is too early to tell.

In contrast, the late-stage 1970s bull market showed minimal interaction with long-term moving averages. The lack of retests reflected a parabolic, momentum-driven phase typical of a terminal advance.

Earlier in the 1970s cycle, GOLD did retest long-term averages, but less frequently than in the 2000s. This suggests a transitional structure—strong trend persistence, but without the steady accumulation rhythm seen in later secular bull markets.

The 70s were surely a bit more complex in terms of navigating the cycle since the first phase of the cycle even broke below the 50/51-week moving averages and entered approximately a 1-year bear market. The 2000s cycle was a bit more predictable in terms of the timing of retests of the 50/51-week moving averages.

Second-derivative trend measures have historically confirmed major tops only after momentum has already rolled over. The second-derivative based on time often means the acceleration of an object in physics. Here, the intuition is similar: as the derivative becomes weaker and slower, the trend of GOLD tends to become weaker, it runs out of fuel to continue going up, intuitively speaking. While useful for validation, they are inherently lagging and unsuitable for early top identification. In a bull market, they can also print false signals, though in such cases it was more indicative of a retest of the 50/51-week moving averages as seen in the 2000s cycle. The second-derivative trend helps to identify if the top is in after it already occurred in confluence with other indicators. Notably, tops have occurred after the second-derivative trend has turned down sharply which is something to look for in the future. This indicator is useful in hindsight, but due to its lagging nature, it cannot be used to predict a future top reliably.

At present, second-derivative and trend structure indicators remain constructive. There is no technical confirmation of a completed top, and price behavior continues to align with ongoing accumulation rather than distribution. Even if it prints a red signal, it could more so indicate a good accumulation than the top being in, depending on when it occurs in the cycle.

Looking ahead, the bull market support band could cross the previous top around February or March, depending on which top is more significant. Once it crosses the previous top, so far it has indicated that at least a local top is within a week or so, before GOLD enters a longer consolidation phase or pullback.

Pitfalls

Keep in mind that this is all just dubious speculation that may or may not occur. GOLD might be more bullish than the analysis of the article or more bearish depending on how market sentiment evolves in the future. Indicators do not tell the future with absolute certainty. They are useful to reason about the future, and it is important to balance both bullish and bearish scenarios to avoid bias as best as possible. Lastly, all indicators are prone to failure every now and then. They tend to work well for a while, but eventually, some indicators fail, while others do not. As more data comes in, the analysis will evolve to incorporate new moves, invalidate a previous hypothesis or gain evidence for a previous idea.

Conclusion

GOLD has shown incredible gains in 2025 outpacing for being a safe asset too. Whether it will continue to do so remains to be seen. Especially now, it is not clear at what point GOLD will break out and how much longer the trend will continue. In the past, GOLD has spent longer times accumulating around the bull market support band. If GOLD breaks out earlier than usual, it would also pull the bull market support band higher, and it could break above prior resistance earlier as well.