Losing Streak Snapped

Now that the safe-haven trade is ebbing, and the greenback is falling a bit, gold's made a bit of a comeback. The bottom made yesterday morning was a little higher than Wednesday afternoon's, and yesterday afternoon didn't see the push-down that the previous two afternoons have seen. This Globe and Mail report by Jan Harvey, which includes a five-day chart, notes that demand in Asia (but not India) seems to be picking up. This Wall Street Journal Online report by Devin Maylie credits a good industrial-production report from China. A Bloomberg report, written by Nicholas Larkin and Glenys Sim, ascribes the recovery to the decline in the fears that drove the U.S. dollar up.

All three reports include the new gold-analyst near-term consensus: gold will mark time until the end of the year, after which it'll begin rising again.