gold still in bull market?

This is what I tried posting this morning.
Not sure why the mod this morning. Thought I'd try again.

Some investors are starting to question if the gold bull market is over.
There are too many different opinions and many of the best qualified experts say they don’t know what’s going to happen in Europe next year.
However most of the good ones if not all, say gold is the best protection.
So regardless of short term volatility which I doubt we can predict accurately, if they are right, a long term strategy of holding quality gold companies with assets in Australia should work very well.
If you’re good enough to pick the swings you should do extremely well.
Whatever chart you look at, gold is either at support, approaching support or just under support.
The big question right now must be is the gold bull market going to continue or end now?
I think of gold as a currency, which is exactly what it is.
After all, banks have held gold as a large part of their reserves throughout history. Up to recent times fiat currency had always been a promise to pay the holder in gold. So as I see it, gold is the ultimate currency.

Regardless of inflation or deflation, gold is a currency that needs to be measured against other currencies and the question has to be which currency has better reason to hold its value against the others.
Most of us know the answer to that so everything else is short term volatility.
Enough has been written about why gold is a store of value during both inflationary and deflationary periods.

If gold had risen to much higher levels, the argument may be different, but I am confident it had not gone far enough at the peak to compensate for the extra money created, and is nowhere near high enough now. It should have also gone higher again to compensate for the higher risk of holding Euros or US dollars.
However it is a relatively illiquid currency so will be volatile when holders need to sell.

Alf suggested a low of; I think it was 1530 "or lower" based on the Elliot wave theory.
I assume he meant possibly a little lower.
Following that low, his target was over $4000, (was it $4600?).
I think his targets make a lot of sense based on fundamentals (liquidity needs in the short term causing weakness now and relative value giving the upside).

I wonder if this weakness has been the result of European banks selling part holdings knowing that they are in big trouble and need to raise cash.
That makes perfect sense because I remember there were at least 4 large banks suggesting people should buy gold when it hit its peak at 1900.

Call me cynical, but I assume they knew they needed to start selling gold to raise cash to (try to) get themselves out of the hole they are in. Hopefully they are near finished selling.
Either way, at some point their selling (whether it is European banks or whoever else) will be met by enough buyers (Asian central banks amongst others) and a low will be established.
The Chinese have huge US dollar reserves that I would think they would love to get out of (they have publicly stated a desire to do so.)
A switch to gold while the US dollar is strengthening and gold is weak makes perfect sense.

I am still a gold bull, even if gold drops below support for a while. All markets are manipulated. All charts are manipulated. These days a short term break of support often turns out to be the best time to buy.
I will stick to placing more importance on fundamentals than a short term break of an uptrend (if that happens).

The HUI is just above support that was formed and has held since late 2010 and finished off its lows last night.

I think it should be ready to start going up now even if gold manages another day or two lower.