Given China's new focus on a basket of currencies, rather than pegging to the dollar alone, today's record-breaking reversal in EUR has sparked a yuuge 300 pips rally in Offshore Yuan (from 6.5270 to 6.4940) pushing to its strongest level since mid-December. At the same time, Gold is accelerating as China opens, pushing up to $1288 - new 13-month highs. Most critical is we are within $5 of Goldman Sachs "short gold" stop at $1291...

Yuan surges to 3-month highs...

As Gold spikes to fresh 13-month highs...

Goldman went short gold on 2/15 at around $1205...

We also maintain our bearish view on gold that has rallied along with the other commodities. Our short gold recommendation (which we opened with a 17% upside, in line with our $1000/toz 12-m forecast) is currently at a c.5% loss, with a stop loss at 7% .

This gold rally was driven by a lack of conviction in divergence in US growth as a weak US dollar has been highly correlated with a higher gold price.

We believe this realignment view of weak global growth is not supported by the US data, which will likely reinforce higher US yields, a stronger US dollar and the return of divergence, particularly should strong US consumer growth dissolve market fears regarding US growth. This in turn will likely put downward pressure on gold prices towards our near-term target of $1100/toz