Gold Is Rapidly Approaching The 'Death Cross'

Heads up: we're seeing a few murmurs about gold approaching the "death cross," which refers to the point where the 50-day average gold price dips below the 200-day average gold price.

It's regarded as one of the most basic sell signals in technical analysis. All it means though, really, is that sentiment toward gold has really headed south recently.

However, as the FT's Jamie Chisholm notes, "traders may position to exploit such a move, thereby exacerbating it."

The last time gold hit the "death cross" – in April 2012 – gold fell 9.1 percent over the next month before rebounding.

The previous "death cross" – which you have to go back to September 2008 to find – resulted in an 18 percent drop over the next 8 weeks before turning around and heading higher.

As of today, the gold price has fallen below both the 50-day and the 200-day moving averages.

Note: Each bar on the chart above represents one trading session.