You may find this response surprising but we are all trying to learn and gauge if there is any more 'juice' in the gold rally. Some use a combo of TA/FA while others are exclusive one or the other. The questions you are asking are loaded and I can only give my opinion, none factual and a probability play at best.
Point
1. Price is rejecting the upper trendline and you can see it quite clearly on the upper shadows of the weekly candles. The consistent rejection is highlighted by the fact the shadows are are declining as in price peaks are getting less if you look at the highest point of each shadow. This is the worry signifying the bulls are unable to break each successive highs. If you flip into daily you will see in more details what I mean.
2. Using the latest swing high from late April early May, is where the current support reside. This is a well known concept that resistance once broken becomes new support for horizontal lines. Google if you want an explanation of the reason. You either believe it or not. This is the level I am watching carefully especially $1300 psychological level. $1302.38 depending on broker feed is currently the lowest point, a day before last month NFP. Look left and you see it took out the stops from an earlier swing low 28.06.2016. The concept is this and not taught in your many trading books you find in the bookshop; if they(market makers) want to let the price rise, they will take it down to bull stops (sell stops) where they take opposite side of market and absorb those stops that sell at market. Once that is clear they let price rise. There is no free lunch for early bulls or bears! Vice versa at the top (resistance)
3. In a range bound regardless of TF but obviously daily and upwards are more significant than the intraday ones, and gold is range bound between the highest and lowest swing points on my chart = 1375.04 to 1302.38 is the precise range. If you see a different broker feed it may varies in price. It does not matter how long price is trapped in this range and the longer the better and referred to as price winding in the direction of that daily momentum which is very much bullish. Remember I am now referring daily since if we talk weekly it takes 5 days for each candle to fully form so we might need to wait months to describe! There is no guarantee that just because the daily momentum is up that price should necessary breakout of the range in that momentum direction. The probability favors this because trend trading you will find it more profitable.
"In the two red lines you have, I don't see any time in the last 5 years, where the POG has spent so much time at the upper limit of any of those lines."
===========
That was my point, in a weekly perspective chart, I cannot confirm definitively right now that the trend has changes to the bullish side but it looks promising. If you observe price from 1M to monthly, it moves in waves and I am not referring to EW. Market structure is a good way to define what the trend is on that TF you are looking at. Observe the Peaks and Trough. Higher peaks higher trough and it is bullish and vice versa. Forget the picture perfect chart, rare occurrence.
"Obviously capital preservation is important, so I would sell if there is a significant turn around, but I just don't see it happening.
POG is closer to breakout then breakdown is all I can see. It had a meteoric rise this year and appears to be consolidating before the next leg up."
===============
How do you know when the top has formed beside someone ringing the bell at the top? Think about it. Once you see the top formed you have given away some of your unrealised capital gains? It starts off as a small retracement in price then gradually gets larger? At what point do you deem a deep retracement is in fact a reversal point? The obvious answer is hindsight. Hindsight=lost paper profits.
I hope I have answered some of your query but don't ask me if this is the top in gold. I can give you Yellen's official land line if it is any help.
