Flash in the Pan Blog

I’m a finance nerd and looking back, I believe that passion for numbers, markets and research fueled my pure lust for gold prospecting. Precious metals have always been a store of value – a historical hedge against inflation and for a number of years I had invested in precious metals as a portion of my overall portfolio. I can almost remember the day when it dawned on me that while I could certainly continue to purchase my precious metals, how much cooler would it be to get out there into the wilds of Washington State and find some of my own? Oh, yeah – you can see where my mind was going. While I realize I will most likely never strike it rich, behind the scenes I keep a close eye on the markets and the internet has been a great educator in both passions.

With hopes of gold’s continued rally beyond the sweet 26% appreciation 2010 brought, many investors were startled to the see the new year of trading open with the price of our favorite precious metal falling 3.1%. What the hell happened? Well, as Alix Steel described in the TheStreet article, “Gold Prices: Correction or Time to Buy?” gold’s rally stumbled due to a string of events, chiefly: the morning opened with aggressive short-term profit sharing, which triggering forced sell stops which then in turn scared away bargain hunting gold bugs not wanting to enter a falling market.

I had an interesting morning reading through one of my favorite gold-related blogs, not necessarily a gold prospecting read, but more centered on owning gold as a hedge. With gold breaking above $1400/oz this morning, dhkenrick of OwningGold.com espoused a common quandary of many gold owners when prices soar to new levels – will gold prices continue to climb, or is this the top?