Everyone looking for a reason, yet no one really wants to talk...

Everyone looking for a reason, yet no one really wants to talk about the (big) elephant in the room. The rising AUD.

The RBA did its best effort a week and a half ago to manipulate (or "downramp" is the favourite word around here) the Australian dollar lower via an unexpected extension of its bond buying. Yet despite a very brief dip, that was basically ignored and it's since gone from 75.7 to 78 in less than 2 weeks while gold flat across that period.

But it's what's next that matters. And while everyone wants to see gold picking up, be it 20% or more, you'd better hope AUD appreciation doesn't significantly outperform it let alone make it well above parity like last time amid the GFC. I'd guess the shorters of today may well expect gold to increase, but they may see the Australian dollar potentially has a lot of tailwinds behind it.