"The trend will depend on what time frame you are referring to....

"The trend will depend on what time frame you are referring to. On the daily, the trend is definitely up. My measurement is none scientific, market structure. Higher peak, higher Trough. If you are asking on the longer TF like a weekly chart then the trend is still down and reverting to that longer term mean. Some who practice trend line concepts will draw a line from the 1900 high and the post Brexit highs were at the top of that falling trend line. So it is a matter of perspective. This is a basic charting concept."

OK still not really an answer.

So the chart says the trend is up and down at the same time depending on what time scale you look at it over. That's not really a satisfying answer.

Then it comes down to what starting point you use and whether you give more importance to the recent past or the longer past.

The big problem I have with your approach is that you reduce your investment case and time frame to periods so small that they could not possibly reflect unfolding macro drivers which generally have long time periods (ie interest rates changes, GDP growth etc etc) or company fundamentals (which also in general change slowly once a gold company reaches a level of steady state production). Your only guide seems to be the very short term noise in the gold price, and judging by some of your recent calls you have elected to sit out some of the most recent gold price moving events (Brexit and the Chump election). These to me would be the events that you would need to exploit with skill to outperform a long term holder in a stock like NST (let's not muddy the water by talking about other stocks). The long term holder of NST has to his or her advantage both any uptrend in the gold price that might have emerged since the bought in but also the above average rate of return on money invested (which includes dividends, that an investor is likely to miss out on if they are continually in and out of the stock). If you don't participate in the big short term share price moves you are reduced to trying to time entry onto longer uptrends in the stock price (or down trends if you have access to a way of shorting). This would generally mean you participate in the uptrends for smaller periods of time than a pure holder as each time you enter and exit the stock you by necessity miss part of the rise as nobody has perfect timing. Also if you mistake a short postion this can cost money. A long term investor just rides out the dips so can't lose on them if the trend in the SP remains firmly up. By definition the smaller moves in the stock price are more difficult to benefit from and most likely impossible to benefit from by trading on a consistent basis. When you integrate the long term investors rate of investment return against the same integral of a traders return on a stock like NST, I'm personally convinced that time in the market wins.

Your other problem is that when you sit out on a stock like NST, what do you do with the money if you are not disciplined enough to just keep it parked on the sidelines? If you don't park the money every time you reinvest the money in another investment story you are exchanging risk. To run a well controlled portfolio you would in theory need to reinvest the funds in another company with a similar general risk exposure but in a more attractive sector. This means knowing the workings of many different companies over many different sectors which for the average retail investor is not practical as it is too difficult to be on top of such a broad spread of the market all at once. If for example an investor takes the money from NST because he sees the gold price falling and invests that money in, for example, a tech start-up story they are exchanging lower risk for higher risk. Chances are they will not have the same amount of money when time comes that an opportunity arises to get back into NST, when a so called good entry presents itself. My general approach in the last 6 months has been to take my wins from explorers and roll those into cash or put the money into gold producers that I see have a long future (ie taking and moving profits to lower perceived risk investments). Amother sensible approach in my opinion is to use the under weight and overweight approach to your portfolio. If you have a good entry in a stock like NST then selling a proportion in reaction to a perceived down trend in the gold price might make sense. So that the stock can be repurchased at a better entry point. If you fundamentally believe the conditions for the gold price are strongly deteriorating then reduce the weighting a little more and visa versa if the outlook improves. That is the basis of most funds regular investment strategies, play the long game (long time period) and mitigate the influence of the commodity price movement by reducing or increasing exposure if conditions are perceived to dictate the need.

You seem to trade products that I don't even consider investments and by their nature they carry a lot of risk due to leverage, execution risk and the fact you are relying on timing all the time.

Please drop the label of goldbug that you like putting on people like myself and others on these forums, its very condescending coming from someone who appears to rely on investment products that revolve around trading on the movement of indexes, and currencies and derivative products in which the trader doesn't own anything. Owning a stock is tangible. You own part of a business. Owning an account on trading platform is intangible. All you own is an account and your position on a ledger existing between counterparties that can be in a positive or negative depending on your timing.

People like me and others are better described as people who are focused on one industry that could generally be described as exploration, mining, metals and energy. The more in depth understanding an investor can have in one industry the more chance they have of success and making the right decisions. If you don't understand what you are investing in to a reasonably high degree you shouldn't be investing at all. Trying to be an expert at everything and crossing sectors is also a big mistake for a retail investor IMO.

Eshmun