To state the obvious, the gold miners definitely are the forgotten sector of the rally from the October 2011 low in the S&P 500 at 1074.77 to this week's high at 1419.15. This rally amounts to a 32% climb, compared to the performance of the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), which is down 2.7% since its October 2011 low.

That said, however, there just might be some cause for optimism, that the Street might feel compelled to rotate into the miners from other frothy sectors. Let's notice that the weakness off of the September 2011 peak has taken the form of a declining wedge formation, which in and of itself represents a correction that is nearing completion, rather than a major top ahead of a bear market.

Furthermore, Thursday's minor upside reversal came after the GDX hit a new multi-month low at 48.05, which held just above, and bounced off of, important multi-year support at 47.50. Thurday's low was not confirmed by daily momentum, or by MACD, twhich is climbing towards a near-term buy signal.

The above-mentioned anecdotal evidence of a turn must be accompanied by upside follow-through action either Friday or Monday. The most bullish signal Friday will be a close above 49.76, which will represent a weekly upside reversal that will trigger preliminary confirmation that the declining wedge pattern is complete, and that the gold miners should be in the early stages of a powerful rally.

Names within the mining ETF that have patterns that closely resemble the declining wedge of the GDX are: Barrick Gold (ABX), Gold Corp. (GG), and Compania de Minas Buenaventura (BVN). Yamana Gold (AUY) and Silver Wheaton (SLW) have a more bullish patterns than the GDX, while Newmont Mining (NEM), AngloGold (AU), Randgold (GOLD), Gold Fields (GFI), and Kinross Gold (KGC) exhibit more bearish variations on the GDX wedge pattern.

By Mike Paulenoff

Mike Paulenoff is author of MPTrader.com (www.mptrader.com), a real-time diary of his technical analysis and trading alerts on ETFs covering metals, energy, equity indices, currencies, Treasuries, and specific industries and international regions.

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