why? Profit taking? "smackdown"? Good news?!!!

Margin calls, Fed manipulation, Fed not providing the full 1% cut, mentioning concern on inflation in statement. Stop losses set at 970 - apparently the support level.

Better ask the goldbugs - They know everything

Where are they when you need them?

...(can I have a refund please..)

A refund? Didn't someone mention to you that the price will fall?

Perhaps this could be a good buying opportunity?

Not for me. It's got to get down to 450 GBP before I'd even think of buying more. If I remember right, a couple of months ago a few of the goldbugs were predicting a corrective pullback quite a bit bigger than the current action. Unless you are spread-betting this is little more than noise.

Is there a consensus yet?

It's a lot easier to ignore the noise if you've been in gold for quite a while (and bought quite a bit when it was a lot cheaper), but -- if I understand Cynic's position -- he/she is only just getting into gold, so gold's decline over the last 24 hours may seem more significant.



A consensus among whom?

No, it's not a first. I bought mid 2006 at £380 or thereabouts.

This is disappointing but not overly consequential.

Smashing! Well, you're quids in, then... assuming you bought and held, of course...

Please accept my apologies for taking a wild stab in the dark at your circumstances... and missing quite badly!

To be fair, many have said that gold was due for a retrenchment. The question is, how far will it fall before recovering. I don't think anyone can predict that, otherwise they'd be amongst the super rich.

Hi

I've been buying regularly since gold was $450/oz. I've gotten used to the massive swings in gold and even bigger corrections in my gold mining stocks. I'll keep buying, ignore the noise and be confident in my decision. What's happened today will scare a lot of recent investors - but hey, put your money in the bank - they're all safe as houses (lol), invest in the strengthening dollar or the stock market. Much much safer than risky gold...

All the while nutcases (goldbugs) like me will keep buying regularly, month by month, accumulating; feeling stupid that our investments have doubled or more, whilst the FTSE has done nothing in the last few years, or we could have put our cash in the bank while it actually lost purchasing power due to the real rate of inflation...

Gold investors - pah - idiots the lot of them. But happy idiots

Regards,
crude.

The speculators have been getting out of oil and where oil goes gold follows. No real concern as oil is underpinned by fundamentals around $100 as we bump along the production plateau. Expect consolidation in both POO and POG around these levels before further rises.

POO! lol. 1st time I've seen that acronym!!!

crude

You say that though, but in doing so seem to ignore the fact it wasn't just a massive swing, but the BIGGEST swing so far in the past year by a large margin.

Hi Marcos.

Don't disagree - how can I - facts are facts. I believe gold is going a lot higher - I may be wrong, but we're talking about a 5% drop here, I've seen a lot worse with other things I've been invested in. The dollar decline sounds horrific, but in percentage terms not too scarey. If it does this day after day, week after week maybe I'll worry...

Regards,
crude

Yeah, I'd hate to have to explain to an attractive woman at a party that my investment strategy was based on POO.

Yeah man! Exactly. Lot of very silly jealous people out there. We all know the type, the ones who can't stand to see other people do better than them. The ones who think everything's unfair and vote Labour to make it fairer for them

Gold down to $923. This looks like the predicted pullback.

GOLD 03/20/2008 05:30 917.20 918.00 -25.70
-2.73%



This could be part of a much broader based commodities bust. It does appear that the Chinese Economy is heading into rough waters both poltically and economically which could cool their economy down considerably. The consensus view on Gloomberg this morning is that the US$ is near a bottom and its time for the rest of the world to play catch up as "it is not contained."

Gold is a hige psychological bet and can turn either way on pure sentiment. We may be seeing a seas chnage in sentiment that could see gold down by 30% from the top in just a few days.

I wonder if GF got out in time or sees this as a buying opportunity? IN a way, everytime is a buying opportunity depending on your investment time frame.

Metal Exchange Closes Website Due to Overwhelming Demand
Link
VI?

Waiting for it to drop into the $800's before buying.

Looks like there was a huge fall last night, and then a pretty big buy back. Went from 919 down to 906, and has gone back up to 917.

It is not a surprise really as it is the end of both a financial quarter and a financial year. I suspect the drop is due to a mix of profit taking and investment firms that had long term shorts on gold who pushed the priced down to reduce the size of their loss.