If there is one magical and mystical commodity that doesn’t want higher interest rates, it is gold. The U.S. Labor Department’s strong payrolls report has put a bit of fear into the minds of the gold bugs. The news has brought a $12 sell-off in gold, down to around $1164 per ounce.

The issue is twofold: a rate hike fear and a weak gold chart.

What is driving the drop is that the strong payrolls report gives cover to the hawkish members of the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner than expected. It seems fairly obvious that the markets are a bit too overly concerned that rates will rise — and they will rise. The problem is that markets are almost always jittery at the end and at the start of rate cycles. Still, will a 0.25% fed funds rate kill the markets? Or a 0.50% fed funds rate? And what about a 1.00% fed funds rate?

Some investors actually are chomping at the bit for higher interest rates to come. It means they can make more money in their savings accounts, something unheard in recent years. Sadly, that spells bad news for gold. Holding gold is a store of value, but gold pays no interest and no dividends.

The problems in Europe have just not gotten bad enough to drive gold back up to where it can sustainably remain above $1,200 per ounce. One of the issues is that there is truly a massive number of sellers as gold gets back toward $1,300. That is the point at which many traders can have a profit of 5% or more, but this $1,300 or so mark seems to be the pivot point from mid-2013 to the end of 2014 and start of 2015.

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Another issue that gold’s chart keeps running into a series of lower highs. Each rally attempt since the last recovery attempt in the fall of 2012 created a triple top that was under the prior $1,900 highs. Every single rally since has met resistance at lower highs.

If you go a bit deeper, the 2015 chart for support might not be so bad. After $1,200 broke to the downside in late 2014 and in 2015, just above $1,150 per ounce has held. That being said, we are just above that by about 1% now. If that does not manage to hold up, then gold could be looking at five-year lows.

The reality is that more and more people going back to work is not exactly interest rate friendly after more than a half-decade of zero interest rates in America and what became negative rates in Europe. It also theoretically acts as a small buffer against the risks from geopolitics, which diminishes another one of the key reasons to own gold. It just does not seem to be the case that all the new jobs being filled are going to create more gold jewelry and gold coin buyers, at least not for years.

But think of the good news outside of the charts. Your bank’s certificate of deposit rate might actually get up to a whole 1% or so soon. Gold bugs may have to just hope for the next international crisis, whatever it will be, to come back into play.

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