In Retrospect, A Debriefing

A Gold Investing News report, by Kishori Krishnan, was certainly well-timed. Written when gold was still at US$1,150, it starts off with this paragraph:

Is the gold ship about to sink? Could that be the reason why some `rats appear to be deserting’ it?

We are talking about hedge fund managers here, many of whom appear to be selling to exit their positions. Are they intent on capturing profits, or could their actions be prodded by other things? A stronger dollar perhaps? Or an unstable economy? Or insights on a gold price slump?

The rest of the article takes a general tone, and doesn't refer specifically to the gold drop, but the opener clearly suggests that the fear of a decline was on the author's mind. I haven't seen any corroborating evidence, but the swiftness of yesterday's decline does hint that aggressive hedge funds precipitated it.


Update: Another in-retrospect debriefing's at The Pragmatic Capitalist. The author there noted a large bear-spread in the GLD options market before the decline got rolling.

And, over at Jesse's Café Américain, a brief and refreshingly agnostic post:

1100 is key support. 1180 is key resistance.

Everything else is noise.