Energy & Gold, It Never Gets Old

Here are two charts of interest.

The first is a chart of gold demand. You can see how gold ETFs dumped the metal hard in 2013.  This was the primary cause of lower prices last year ...

Here, Reuters presents the facts on this in the most bearish way possible. My take -- ETF selling of gold is winding down, and Chinese demand seems insatiable. I'd say gold is going higher.

By the way, over America's long weekend, gold closed over my target of $1,327.  I'm not sure if that should be counted as a technical signal or not.  My gut says yes -- after all, it shows what can happen when New York isn't there to put its thumb on the scales. On the other hand, the New York banks can't be ignored. I'm of two minds on this.

Anyway, here's the next chart -- a projection from the Energy Information Administration of US crude oil and liquids fuel production.

Based on actual US oil production data through January, the Energy Information Administration forecasts that the U.S. will produce an average of 8.5 million bpd in 2014 and 9.3 million bpd in 2015. This is a slight downward adjustment in the forecast for both 2014 and 2015 (down by 0.1 million bbl/d) because of indications that severe weather this winter has caused temporary slowdowns in completing new wells.