The Shorts have RMS by the "Short & Curlies!", page-26

Usually I use Goldseek COT, but they haven't updated yet due to Easter, so I went direct to the source. This is the total Futures and Options in the market. Some amount of traders are always long and some are always short.

Usually the Commercial Bullion Banks are taking the Short side of the trade, i.e. making the market, and the Speculators the Long side. For the COT report Non-Commercials (Large Specs) and Nonreportables (Small Specs) are all you need to worry about, i.e. Total Specs.

On 16th April, Total Spec Longs are at 237,351, a level that's really low since the start of the bull market from end of 2015 (green line in the chart). Longs have lots of buying available to them.

The Short side (red line in the chart) has way less capital available. You can see this by how the green long line in the chart is usually much higher than the red short line. Total Spec Shorts are now at 156,937, a level that's relatively high since the start of the bull market. Shorts can't keep large positions for much time until they are forced to cover. Shorts covering and Longs buying have an identical affect on the Gold price.

In summary Longs have most of their firepower left to drive Gold higher and shorts can only push their side so far before they have to start covering their positions and joining the buying spree. COT's are useful to see how much fuel is available for the market to go higher or lower, but not useful for timing.



To answer your other questions, yes Gold was being shorted big time in the last week to break resistance levels and panic Longs into selling. Gold will have a horror week this week and form the intermediate low just before the FOMC meeting, then go back up from there. Yes, I'll be buying RMS as close to the low as I can. My target is lower than your chart, 1260-1240, although I am following time more than price to help me find the low. The next leg up will be big and beautiful, much easier to hold through than the last one.
All IMO. Happy Easter!