While everyone and their brother appears to have jumped ship on gold and widely read bloggers are churning out mindless posts with alarmist titles, gold has quietly formed a double-bottom during the last 24 hours:

Click to enlarge

GC_bottom

 

The longer term technical picture still looks challenging for gold, however, for now there is a clear short term level of support to trade against ($1216). I see 3 primary scenarios between now and Friday's close:

1. Bullish scenario - A weekly close above $1240 which would add considerable importance to the $1216 double-bottom and make the post-FOMC selling look like a false breakdown.

2. Bearish scenario - Further selling to end the week and a breach of the $1216 double-bottom would bring the $1180 level into full view.

3. Neutral scenario - An oscillation between $1220 and $1235 into Friday's close would give gold bulls some respite although the bears would still be firmly in control on the daily/weekly time frames.