NEW YORK (Reuters) – It’s hard to be upbeat about gold these days, but technical analysts are keeping their faith in the long-term bull run — just barely.

As the precious metal fell by a record over $120 an ounce on Friday and Monday, peak to trough, gold selling snowballed as several important technical support levels were breached. What began in early September as a correction after several months of accelerating gains has threatened to become a rout.

But the most critical price points needed to maintain the post-2008 rally at around $1,500 an ounce have held firm for now, according to analysts who study candlestick charts and historical trends to predict prices.

Monday’s low at $1,534.49 was just above the 200-day moving average at $1,527, the first of three relatively clustered support levels that are either going to provide good reentry levels, or, if they all crumble, perhaps signal that this was more than a short-term correction.

The trendline connecting major lows at $680.80 on Oct 24, 2008, and $1,156.90 on July 28, 2010 lies around $1,472.60 and rises about $2 per day. Right below that at $1,451.43 is the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the 2008-2011 rally, which is an important technical objective for followers of Elliott Wave Theory and others.

“As long as that pull back is orderly, one would have to give bulls the benefit of the doubt in the long-term timeframe,” says Adam Sarhan, CEO of New York-based Sarhan Capital. “However, the bears remain in control of this movement.”

At its low of $1,534.49 early Monday, gold was down 20 percent from the record high at $1,920.30 set on September 6. While 20 percent is the conventional bear-market threshold for stock market technicians, it is less meaningful for gold because the market is so volatile and sometimes illiquid.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Commodity investors fled for the exits on Thursday in a panic over raw materials demand, unconvinced that Federal Reserve action will stem a global economic slowdown that shows signs of infecting China and Germany.

Cyclical commodities took the hardest hit in the broad flight from risk, especially copper futures, which fell 7.9 percent, the biggest daily loss since the financial crisis in late 2008. U.S. crude lost 6 percent and silver, one of the most volatile markets, tumbled almost 10 percent.

They dragged the Reuters-Jefferies CRB futures index .CRB, a 19-commodity global benchmark for the asset class, down 4.4 percent, the biggest daily loss since May 5, to its lowest point since December 1.

The capitulation came a day after the Fed launched new stimulus measures aimed at reducing long-term interest rates without resorting to more money creation, known in previous plans as quantitative easing. It also issued a stark warning of “significant downside risks” to the economy.

Stock investors also voted with their feet, pushing the Dow Jones industrials .DJI down 4.5 percent, with little confidence that the plan would rescue a moribund U.S. economy.

The dollar rose to a seven-month high as mounting concerns about the global economy drove investors to seek safety and liquidity in U.S. Treasuries. A surging dollar makes commodities less affordable for buyers using other currencies.

“I think the pain will continue until the monetary authorities announce some new liquidity measures. This is a bad situation,” said a commodity hedge fund manager in New York.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Safe-haven buying lifted gold above $1,800 per ounce for the first time and oil rebounded from six month lows on Wedesday as confidence in the U.S. and euro zone economies eroded fast, while the outlook for Chinese commodities demand brightened.

With global interest rates very low, many investors bought commodities as a wealth-preservation alternative to cash. That flight to safety added 1.4 percent to the Reuters-Jefferies CRB Index, a day after the benchmark basket of 19 commodity futures hit an eight-month low as money fled plunging stock markets.

Even as equities on Wall Street nosedived again, markets focused on a downturn in French stocks. The crux of Europe’s debt fears spread from Italy and Spain to a country with a top credit rating, which in turn sent gold up more than 3 percent briefly as one of a handful of relatively low-risk assets.

“The skies would appear to be clear for these safe havens like gold,” said Andrew Wilkinson, senior market analyst at Interactive Brokers Group, Greenwich, Conn. With the debt woes spilling over into the world’s biggest economics, “we don’t know where this thing is going to stop anymore.”

Even a rebound in the dollar, which rose in the rush to buy safe U.S. Treasury securities, did not cool the ardor for gold, though it made buying it costlier in other currencies.

Benchmark U.S. gold futures rose to $1,801 an ounce, the third record in a row, extending its biggest rally since the financial crisis of 2008. It closed up $41.30, or 2.4 percent, at $1,784.30.

Spot gold was 2.6 percent higher at $1,789.14 in late trade. The price of bullion peaked at $1,796.86 and also hit record highs in euro and sterling terms.