So What Caused the April Drop?

[goodasgold]

Now that the dust has settled a bit, what, in the opinion of PPers. caused the price of gold to fall off a cliff in April? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Bean]

Perception of a recovery without inflation.

Reality maybe considerably different from perception when this all plays out though.

[Libertarian666]

The sale of hundreds of tons of paper gold in a short interval on April 12th, followed by margin calls against leveraged longs on April 15th.

[Gosso]

A higher than average occurrence of rainbows.  This resulted in a huge number of 'pots of gold' discoveries, thereby flooding the market with gold. 

[goodasgold]

A higher than average occurrence of rainbows.  This resulted in a huge number of 'pots of gold' discoveries, thereby flooding the market with gold. 

Personally, I would place more blame for the gold dip on Cramer's hot new rumor that the Chinese are going to lasso a solid gold asteroid in space and haul it back to Beijing. Remember, you have been warned!

[Tyler]

Alright, I admit it -- It was me.  I bought more gold in March.  My bad, guys.

[melveyr]

I think a lot of people bought into gold on misguided inflation expectations. I think the market is still learning what QE does and doesn't do.

Today's inflation data was incredibly weak:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-1 ... onomy.html

[Reub]

That looks like a sign of more Fed buying to come. If inflation is below target and unemployment above, then Bernanke will continue to print. That's what he does.

[rickb]

A list of explanations (leaning toward the gold price suppression conspiracy theory), with links, is here: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... d-crashing

Note, in particular, these sites claiming it's all part of the gold price suppression conspiracy:

• http://www.gotgoldreport.com/2013/04/ro ... comex.html
• http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/8153 ... kets-banks
• http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-feds-a ... et/5331359
• http://www.tickertalk.co.za/blog.php?us ... ry_id=4074

.. and this site claiming it was because of a rumor that Cyprus would be selling its gold: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ot-obvious

... and this site claiming it was because of a liquidity issue involving futures contracts (specifically, August 2014 futures): http://monetary-metals.com/forensic-bas ... old-crash/

Central banks definitely have a vested interest in controlling the gold price (to make their fiat currencies not look stupid).  IMO, this fact alone lends considerable credence to the conspiracy theories.