Until the rising reserve powers of Asia, Russia and the Gulf regain trust in the shattered credibility of the world’s two great fiat currencies – if they ever do – gold is unlikely to crash far or remain in the doldrums for long. `Peak gold’ cements the price floor in any case.
It has been an unsettling experience for late-comers who joined the gold rush near all-time highs of $1923 an ounce last September. The slide has become deeply threatening since the US Federal Reserve took quantitative easing (QE3) off the table six weeks ago – or appeared to do so – and signalled the start of a new tightening cycle. Spot gold ended the pre-Easter week at $1636.
“The game has changed,” says Dennis Gartman, apostle of the long rally who now scornfully tells gold bugs that he is just a “mercenary”, not a member of their cult. “They genuflect in gold’s direction; we merely acknowledge that it exists as a trading vehicle and nothing more. There are times to be bullish, and times to be bearish … to every season, as Ecclesiastes tells us.”
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