Gold Falls After Dollar Rebounds Against Euro

A couple people vehemently disagreed with our post suggesting a cautious entry into gold this week. Maybe they’re right: maybe the commodity boom is over, maybe the housing troubles and liquidity problems are a thing of the past, and maybe the Fed is going to start getting tough on inflation at the next meeting and will start raising rates. And maybe Mount St Mary’s will beat UNC tonight and go all the way to the finals. But at least a few others also see a chance to start small in gold here.

I was about a week too early in predicting the sell-off in precious metals, but it certainly materialized as we witnessed gold lose $100 (10%) and silver lose $3.50 (17%) in just 48 hours. It looked like a manufactured event by commercial traders (mostly big banks) to take advantage of technical investors, liquidate their short positions and go long again by buying the cheap gold that weak hands and technical traders were dumping into the market. Ted Butler wrote a good article about how this works, for anyone interested in reading more.

A recent Barrons article points out that "gold and copper are each down 12% from the all-time highs seen on March 17 and March 6, respectively, while crude has fallen 11% from its March 17 high. London International Financial Futures Exchange sugar and cocoa are off 25% and 21%, respectively, from recent highs, while Chicago Board of Trade wheat has slipped nearly 20% since March 13." Is this the end of the commodity bull run?