Gold just printed 3 red monthly candles in a row, first time since 2022. Trend exhaustion or just a pullback?

Gold just closed its third consecutive red monthly candle, sitting around $4,538 after topping out near $5,500. That's the first run of three red months since mid-2022, and it comes right after one of the strongest multi-year moves the metal's ever had. People are pulling up the old "last time this happened" comparisons, but a single prior instance isn't really a sample, so we're more interested in how traders are actually framing it than in any one analogy.

The honest debate seems to be whether this is normal profit-taking inside a still-intact uptrend, or the first real sign that the move is running out of buyers. Both readings fit the same chart right now, which is what makes it interesting.

How are you reading it:

* After a parabolic run, what's your actual tell that a pullback is turning into a trend change?
* Do multi-month candle patterns like this carry weight in your process, or do you treat monthly signals as too slow to trade?
* If you're still long gold here, what would have to happen for you to flip flat or short?