Gold and Silver Cleared Resistance. The Rest of the Commodity Complex Is Still Under It.

This morning's CPI print did not do much to the broad tape. The market chopped, activity stayed light, nothing resolved at the index level. The commodity complex was more informative, where the print produced two clean technical breaks and left everything else structurally unchanged.

Gold and silver both cleared downsloping trend lines that had capped them for weeks. Oil, wheat, copper and natural gas cleared nothing. They are rallying, in some cases sharply, but each one is climbing into overhead supply rather than out of it.

That distinction is the read right now. A move that clears structure and a move that runs into structure look similar on a daily percentage basis and behave very differently from there. Complicating it further: Sweeney reads VIX fear as back at a pre-Iran-war low, which normally argues for risk-on pressure. The safe-haven trade broke out anyway.

Gold and Silver Have Done What the Rest Have Not

Gold had been knocking on a downsloping trend line repeatedly before the print, and the increasing frequency of those tests was the tell. Repeated tests can weaken resistance as sellers absorb successive attempts. This one gave way on the CPI number.

What comes next is a stack of resistance rather than open air. First is a shorter-term upsloping trend line off the July 3 pivot, now with four touches, sitting directly overhead. Above that, a wide-range red-bar candle that has flipped polarity several times marks the $4,477 to $4,480 zone. Clearing that puts the $4,500 round number in play.

Below, $4,311 is the nearer support, with the $4,268 pivot low beneath it.

Silver broke the same way, and now has an upsloping trend line off its pivot low carrying price higher. The more interesting behavior is around the $65 handle. Price stalled at $65.05 last Friday, pushed above, then spent three sessions trading beneath it without resolution. Intraday that level has been heavily traded, and today produced a bounce off support with a sequence of higher lows behind it. Above $65, the next reference is the candle top at $67.15.

Two breakouts in the same complex on the same catalyst. That is the cleanest structure on the board.

Oil Is Rallying Into Three Layers of Resistance

Energy is doing the opposite, and it is the more instructive chart.

War risk that built through late July looks priced in at this point. Oil sold off to roughly $74 to $75 a barrel last week and has since pushed back above $80. The rally is real. The problem is where it is headed.

Three separate trend lines sit overhead. The one capping price now is a downsloping line with five touches, hit twice in a single session today, with price consolidating beneath it. That break comes in near $83. Above it, a formerly upsloping trend line that flipped to resistance after price lost it on the sell-off, now with three touches, converges with the longer-term downsloping line in the $86 to $87 area.

A push higher does not get a clean runway. Jake's stated preference is for oil to work lower, and on the downside the reference is $75, with the early July lows at $72 to $70 beneath.

The rally off $74 is what a retracement into supply looks like. Whether it becomes more than that depends on $83.

Copper Is One Level Away

Copper printed a multi-year high at $40.97 last Wednesday and traded up to roughly $40.41 today. The immediate obstacle is $40.42, a pivot acting as resistance since the start of the month. Clear it and the $40.97 high comes back into play.

There is also a wedge forming off the January 30 high pivot, now on its fifth touch. Same dynamic as the metals, where successive tests preceded the break.

Downside support sits at $39.55, backed by an upsloping trend line with three touches, and then the $38 to $39 zone.

Wheat and Nat Gas Are Building Bases, Not Breaking Out

Wheat moved into its long-term downsloping trend line off the March 7 high pivot, hit those highs cleanly, and came back in. The nearer obstacle is a trend line off a February high pivot that price drove through, could not confirm above, then gapped down from. The next test is around $25 flat. Support is the better-defined side: the upsloping trend line off the January 2 pivot low creates a triangle zone between $23.60 and $24.14, with the $23.55 pivot low, which bounced Friday, just underneath.

UNG sits earlier in the same process. It bottomed at $9.53 to $9.55 on the third touch of a parallel channel, found support off the channel's inline, and has been recovering. The wide-range bar at $10.40 caps it.

Key Levels

What Would Confirm or Invalidate This

The metals breaks hold as long as gold stays above its trend line and silver holds the $65 handle it has been fighting over for three sessions. Losing $65 puts that break back in question quickly, since price has already shown it trades both sides of the level.

For everything else the confirmations are numbered: $83 on oil, $40.42 on copper, $25 on wheat, $10.40 on UNG. Until those go, the group is rallying inside its existing structure, not out of it.

Which leaves the divergence. Equity-market fear has drained back toward pre-conflict levels, which should push capital toward risk, and yet the haven trade is the one that broke out today.

That divergence does not need to resolve immediately. It does make the metals breakout harder to dismiss as a simple fear trade. Buyers cleared resistance even as equity-market fear continued to drain.

This article is intended for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. All trading involves risk. Past performance is not indicative of future results.