ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- Though gold is trading today at...

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) -- Though gold is trading today at a new all-time high, you'd never know it by reviewing the advice of gold market timers.

Far from being exuberant, which they'd have every right to be, they're strangely glum -- only half as bullish as they were at the beginning of the year, when bullion was trading for more than $100 per ounce less than where it stands today.

Their skepticism is a bullish omen, according to contrarian analysis.

Consider the average recommended gold market exposure among a subset of short-term gold timing timers tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest (as measured by the Hulbert Gold Newsletter Sentiment Index, or HGNSI). That average currently stands at 30.6%.

In early January, in contrast, the HGNSI stood at 60.9%. And last December this sentiment index got as high as 68%.

It's extraordinary that gold timers would become more bearish as bullion has risen. The far more common pattern is for timers to become more bullish as the market rises, just as they almost always tend to become more bearish as the market falls.

Contrarians believe it to be a bullish sign that the gold timers did not adhere to this general pattern in recent weeks. It suggests that there is a profound climate of skepticism among the timers.

Bull markets, the saying goes, like to climb a wall of worry. And there definitely is a very strong such wall out there right now.