Putting aside the various conspiracy theories (credible or not), it is interesting to watch the fluctuations in gold over the last few weeks.
Last 24 hours was particularly interesting. A constant seems to be the decline of the USD, despite BoJ intevention and the occassional weak rally. Obviously this is supportive for gold plus the current fears about regional conflicts.
Gold rose substantailly in Europe last night (our time). Then in NY trading time, one or two influential brokers downgraded some large American-listed gold stocks. They have run relatively hard in the last few months, some of them would also be seen as problematic because of their hedging positions at USD325 gold and there may be also concern that they may be forced to overbid in the current international consolidation process in order to secure quality assets outside the US. I gather these downgrades took the edge of the gold price, although there was good buying support limiting this fall.
All this suggests to me is that things will be unpredictable, but as long as reasonable momentum is maintained, patient selective buying of 'value' gold stocks should be worthwhile, if you you want to increase your gold holdings.
The money being sucked into the spec gold stocks may also mean that there will be less money for base-metal / diamond spec stocks, at least in the short term, so possibly there may be some decent medium term buys out there, especially also given its tax-loss selling time.
My thoughts only. I will probably be proved to be wrong.
