Increases in oil inventories and a firmer dollar put a dent into gold prices early Tuesday. Gold fell about 1% before recovering slightly and stabilizing.

The precious metals markets have all the ingredients necessary to repeat the performance they were once famous for.

Expect volatility to go higher and trading ranges to expand.

That’s a pretty big impact on the drivers.

There is that tug-of-war between would-be buyers and the traders who really are squaring the trading logs before we head into the weekend.

Gold appears to be reflecting the lack of fresh bad news … rather than true profit-taking.

Amid signs of growing dollar weakness and despite positive consumer confidence numbers … gold resumed [on Monday] its familiar pattern of corrections followed by bounce-backs.

Tehran’s own silence this week … left strategic analysts with but one conclusion: it’s looking like either sanctions or a pre-emptive clean-up strike against enrichment plants in Iran might be the solution left.

Gold is as much a mirror of current human events as it is a barometer of future asset values.

When you ignore the U.N., you ignore all the nations of the world at once. This, as we have learned, is suicidal.

The saber rattling (albeit strongly watered down in the past few hours) coming from the White House and the wayward chatter coming out of Tehran once again clashed on the world political scene.

In a world where news stories continue to make ominous ripples, gold is acting like the thermometer of collective global anxiety.

It will take either a sharp sequence of rate increases … or a significant reversal of rate hikes … to move the gold market in a meaningful way at this point.

We saw little evidence yesterday that the Godzilla-size footprints of funds bailing out of gold was present. We did see evidence overnight that millions of tiny (individual-investor) footprints make for an equal-size impact on gold...

The trigger fingers hovering over all of the instability-sensitive commodity ‘buy’ buttons (gold, oil, etc.) are as jittery as ever.

Unfortunately, the district doesn’t share that interpretation. They’re pushing ahead with a decision right now.

Gold would like to go somewhat lower to follow long-established seasonal patterns as well as to complete the corrective phase it was in, after a swift race to nearly $600 per ounce.

Buoyed by the Nigerian oil sabotage news and a weaker U.S. dollar, gold has reasserted its safe-haven attributes since last Friday.

We stand by the assertion that a quarter percent better fed funds rate will NOT make the critical difference to medium-term and/or long-term gold investors.

None of this probing [to the downside] will negate the fundamental nervousness the market continues to experience, and the hair-trigger volatility will continue to be an integral feature of the metals complex as news keeps...

They did buy the rumor and sell (or not buy further) on the fact.

The gold price is now flirting with critical support levels ($532-$535), and it faces a possible short- to medium-term trough — one that could even breach the $500 level.

Diversifying away from dollars has become desirable — retail investors returned to the precious metals arena in droves this week.

While there still remains a strong link between oil and gold prices, at this moment any market interpretation of high U.S. inventory levels is being overshadowed by the tense standoff with Iran.

Although gold remains vulnerable to at least another bout of selling as we head into next week, the fact that it erased Thursday’s losses demonstrates (for the time being) the fact that this bull is...

Traders were watching a sinking dollar and the apparent diversion of petro-dollar profits into bullion (a repeat of the pattern that was last visible in the gold run of 1980).

Gold burst decisively through the $560 mark…even as many participants are out for the U.S. holiday.

The dollar took enough of a hit to convince traders that gold was a safer place to park funds in for the next few sessions.

Gold closed out the week on a firmer yet inconclusive note as traders squared logbooks ahead of the weekend.

While there still remains some room for a couple of visits on the lower end of the trading range, the market appears to digest geopolitical and economic realities with the same, predictable outcome: higher prices.

A global scramble for the asset is now unfolding, as the fund-driven price action is snowballing and attracting investors from all walks of life.

Surely, corrections will come; but when and if they do they will continue to be regarded as buying opportunities for the long-run, not the beginning of the end.

The hikes are not as much an attempt to stave off inflation as they are designed to attract investment into the dollar by would-be debt holders (China, Japan, etc.) of the U.S. currency.

We were definitely overdue for a correction and we are almost repeating last week’s dip pattern.

In the gold trading pits, economic uncertainties are taking a back seat to uncertainties of a different nature these days.

Aside from the amalgam of worrisome news items coming from many corners of the globe … the investment community is also looking with apprehension at economic news and has nothing to smile about.

A number of respectable institutions raised their current year and 2007 forecasts for gold and more of them are no longer afraid of mentioning the word ‘record’ when it comes to future gold prices.

Gold as well as silver continues to benefit from a robust global growth pattern and consumption of all types of commodities.

The huge pool of global liquidity out there has not found a better place to rush into, and is enchanted with gold and its prospects.