I mostly agree, it is not good to carry on about manipulation of gold - all markets are pushed around and there are powerful market forces as well. I don't even own a tinfoil hat.
Anyway QE is here with us all the time via super low rates, under inflation so neg rates - good for gold. Broad money is back up - half the time they crap on about QE not happening and there is an injection across the pond or via some back door measure. Just different names.
Fear a major driver if it kicks in we do not need a strong economy or QE for gold to go higher, and it will.
Perhaps I can share the latest opening paragraph from a file I am completing: (I wrote this earlier today) "The stupidity rolls on with talk of QE as if that solves anything. And as if this is important to the gold price, which it is not. All QE accomplishes is time, the US has used it by taking the hard decisions and pushing restructure, however Europe has not."
But I can tell you one way gold gets a smack down on occasion, perhaps on options expiry wink wink.
Had a guy writing my NLetter years back told me that when he was working in the US at a major bank they would get a call at times - one tonne Au or a large sum at a discount of say $20 an ounce, that was significant back then. The dealers would jump on the phones and offer top clients the first pick at $15 bucks below spot (bag $5 an oz) and the clients would then in turn dump it on market for a fast profit on the bid - took down the price circa $10 an oz and everybody made money and gold went down.
Stocks get shorted, Libor gets rigged, phony rot going on right through the system - but mostly gold goes up and down on market forces - technical trading, hedging by producers and manufacturers etc, or large buyers soaking it up holding the price as we have seen during this consolidation phase.
