I think we've just got to accept that the precious metals...

I think we've just got to accept that the precious metals markets are manipulated and make our investment decisions based on that.

For example, 10 consecutive years of annual rises in the gold price at a similar percentage each year smacks of manipulation ... in this case allowing the gold price to rise but not rise too much. In a free market gold might have risen 50% in one year and then corrected in another year, but price suppression resulted in gold always being considered undervalued and hence gold managed to rise annually for 10 years.

It was only when gold soared to above US$1900 in August 2011, with fears that gold could soar above US$2000 and into a runaway bull market, that the strategy changed from suppressing the speed of gold's rise to instead killing off the gold price and killing off positive sentiment towards gold.

One of the results has been massive amounts of physical gold moving to nations like Russia and China. With physical only gold ETFs being established and physical gold trading markets such as in China due to start later this year, it is only a matter of time imo before the Western paper pricing power and the Western paper suppression of gold loses the major influence it currently has on the gold price.