Gold is popping this morning on a number of bullish forecasts, among them a survey of analysts by Bloomberg that sees the yellow metal going to $1,500:

Gold may rise as high as $1,500 next year, 21 percent more than the $1,240 traded at 1:45 p.m. in London, according to the median in a Bloomberg survey of 29 analysts, traders and investors. Dan Brebner, an analyst at Deutsche Bank in London who is the most accurate forecaster so far this year, says the metal may reach $1,550.

With the economy stuck in neutral and Ben Bernanke's money-printing minions firing up another round of Monopoly money, I don't see any reason why gold can't go to $1,500. However, if you are late to the gold party and are afraid of chasing it, here's an idea: Buy some gold mining stocks. They have lagged the gold rally most of the way up.

Some quality gold and silver stocks, including Newmont Minining (NEM), Royal Gold (RGLD), and Pan American Silver (PAAS), are breaking out this morning with bullish action.

Let's catch up on many of the public companies and stocks we've been following:

Amazing to me, having followed, traded, and invested in gold over the last 8 years, that there are still so many gold skeptics out there. Like being wrong for a decade isn't enough?

Gold bears have trouble with basic comprehension of the bull market. Primary example is Ben Bernanke, who naively stated before Congress that he "didn't understand" why gold was going up. Why Ben, it's easy: It's because you are creating mountains of debt and paper money. You want some gold coins or burning paper money? What's not to understand?

This morning, Gold is breaking out again into bull territory, the beginning of a new phase that will likely carry it back above $1,300 by year-end. The correction is over.

An analyst I often consult with described this morning's market as "soggy," which is just about the best term I can think of. The Fed did nothing to buoy spirits yesterday, as they downgraded their outlook on the economy, keeping rates artificially low (perhaps forever?).

This morning, equities are trading down. Right now the market is trading on headline news, the regulatory framework in Wasthington, and largely ignoring corporate profits news, which has been positive-to-benign.

Tonight we have big tech reports from RIM (RIMM) and Oracle. Lately the trend has been for the market to sell off on good news, which is indicative of a bear market approaching, so this will be interesting to watch. Remember: it is the reaction to the news not the news itself that matters.

I am looking more at technicals as I believe this is a technical/supercomputer driven market and I continue to believe we are setting up for a "death cross" as the 50-day moving average threatens to crossover the 200-day moving average shortly. I am surprised that more people are not talking about this, as it is a medium-trend indicator not to be ignored. In addition to that, we have formed a large head-and-shoulders pattern in the S&P, another formation that I do not like, especially given the recent action in the market.

In my long-term investment accounts, I am currently largely in cash. In my short-term trading accounts, I am short the S&P. I added to that S&P position this morning. I also re-entered a gold position.

(Disclosure: Short S&P futures, long gold)

Well, gold had a nice aggressive run from $1,100 to $1,250 in the space of a month. And now, in classic fashion, gold is experiencing one of its nasty bull-market corrections. It's down about $16 today. Yet another indication that you should sell gold when CNBC announcers are getting hysterical about it, and buy it when they forget about it. I think nailing the bottom of this particular gold correction is going to be very difficult. Gold is entering the third and final stage of its majestic bull market, which will result in a parabolic rise. It's going to be wild from here on out, and I don't think $50 intra-day moves are out of the questions. That being said, this may be your last chance to get in before price movements become too big to stomach. Where do I think you do that? The typical pattern has been for the correction to retrace 50% of the prior move. As I mentioned the last aggressive move was $150, so you could reasonably expect to retrace half of that, which would yield $75, down to $1175. But in this case, we might not get that far down. Due to the accelerating nature of the gold chart, I think there may only be a few days to buy it in my "buy zone," which is between $1175 to $1200. I would love to be buying more gold in the green circle identified in my chart below. My stop would be $1150. I really, really doubt that we will get down as low as $1150. Now, if you don't own any gold, it's a little more tricky than if you've been riding this move up and sold off some of the gold into the strength. If you are trying to establish a position it may be wise to just wait a few days and see how this correction pans out. The first say you see a decelerating decline at or below $1,200, that's the time to give it a shot.

Okay, so, as expected, the S&P filled the "Flash Crash" gap we talked about here a few days ago. Kind of. Now what? This morning we are exeperiencing a relief rally. The Euro is actually green by a few points. Gold is getting pummeled (as it always does after a $150 run). Will it last? I think it's important to see how powerful this rally is after a few days, rather than a few hours. I have covered my shorts for the time being but I expect to reload at a later date, possibly as early as later in the week. And I will be buying gold on its decent toward the 1200 area, where there is a lot of support. I will not really be impressed with a rally in stocks unless they can convincingly break through 1160 level on the S&P. There are too many reasons to sell right now.

I get a lot of questions about why I write about technology, the stock market, and gold so much. Why mix it up? Well, that's because I believe that the world is very connected -- especially the financial and economic world. Technology really isn't that different from gold, actually. They are both currencies. They are both means of trade. I also believe that both are capable of spawning revolutions.  You see, gold, like technology, is based on a standard: it's a standard for the monetary base.That's becoming more evident today as we see gold head to new highs, as I wrote would happen here. As the world fiat monetary system collapses (we're witnessing this before our very eyes), that will spawn a move to more open monetary systems. Think of the days back during mainframes and proprietary mini-computer standards. The world was ruled by technology fiefdoms  and proprietary systems produced by powerhouses such as IBM in Wang Labs. The mini-computer was replaced by the industry-standard PC. Wang filed for bankruptcy. In the 1980s, and later, in the 1990s, the move to open systems accelerated as chips, networking standards, and communications opened up and could become interchangeable, spawning the creating of a massive ecosystem of suppliers. There were suddenly thousands of technology producers, rather than a handful. Technology activity throughout the world exploded. That's the power of open standards.

After the European Central Bank (ECB) announced an unprecedented market intervention, the Euro and global stock markets have fallen after this morning's gap up, which is not a good sign at all. During the weekend, with markets and the Euro in freefall, the Euro bankers enacted a $1T bailout package to reassure markets before they opened in Asia early this morning. The plan includes nearly $1 trillion in loans and a bond purchase program to stanch the bleeding in sovereign debt in countries including Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. Unfortunately, the markets do not appear reassured. The Euro is only up a few points, after being up nearly 2% earlier in the morning. The ECB policy actions were designed to prop up the Euro, after all. Remember, a market's reaction to the news is always more important than the news itself. Can this be construed as good news? Hardly. The size of the response indicates the crisis may have been bigger than we thought. Last week there were many rumors of European bank insolvencies and Credit Default Swaps (CDS) were rising, signaling genuine alarm.

For those of you new to the Rayno Report (oh wait -- I'm new too), one of our big themes is investigating, analyzing, and playing the big trends, whether it be in markets or technology. I am a big believer that at fundmental turning points there are huge opportunities. Here are some of the trends to look at and pay attention to  in reverse order: 10) The world is running out of rare-earth metals (Forbes) 9) Growth of LEDs. Eight) Terrorism-scanning software is becoming very sophisticated. And that means a growing threat to personal liberty (Telegraph). 7) Growth of digital Imaging. In all forms. 6) Computer-algorithms are taking over financial markets (Source: NYSE, Nasdaq) 5) Government debt is becoming the biggest threat to world financial markets (Source: BBC) 4) World currencies are being debased. And Gold is becoming the ultimate world currency. Again. 3) Cloud Computing -- and what it means for many technology businesses. 2) Video is taking over the Internet (Source: Cisco Systems). 1) Internet data traffic -- and mobile data traffic, in particular -- is exploding. Unfortunately, revenues aren't!

This morning, the stock-market action is looking a bit like Charlie Sheen after a raging Hollywood party. Remember, the best parties always have a hangover. The market has grown increasingly volatile over the last few days. It's not the kind of action that I like. In addition, the currency world has been positively insane, with massive swings in the Euro, Dollar, and gold. Right now the dollar is screaming and the Euro is down about 150 points. This wild currency action is indicative of more instability in the sovereign debt markets. I spent the morning unloading the most of the remaining stocks that I owned that had been accumulated in the last 6-12 months. The reason? A lot of these stocks have run long and strong. These violent market swings, and the S&P chart, have my spidey-sense tingling. I will keep a few low-priced blue chip stocks but for the moment, with this kind of market action, I'm content to sit on a very large cash position. And I'm hedging that by shorting S&P futures. With the futures position, I don't have any problem being slightly net short at the moment. See the chart below and what do you think? I've seen this  formation before and I like to call it a "diving-board chart." That's fine, if there's water in the pool. But what if the pool is just cold, hard cement?