BARONS: Two Gigantic Suspicious Sales Of Gold On Friday That Caused The Price Plunge

thenews 2013.05.19 15:27

Gold went down the toilet again on Friday, and is now close to revisiting its April lows.

This gold weakness is causing a lot of consternation to fans of it who don't understand how the precious metal can keep falling, when central banks around the world continue to press down on the gas pedal.

A lot of gold bugs think the price is being manipulated somehow, or that there's some divergence between what's going on in "paper" gold (gold prices that are tied to ETFs) and what's going on in physical gold (people buying ingots or jewelery)

Randall W. Forsyth at Barron's fans the flames of goldbug conspiracy theorists a bit this weekend, arguing that there have been suspicious sales in gold seen on the exchanges (probably driven by the ETFs).

He writes:

These improbable moves have made gold bugs suspicious, which isn't unusual. Folks who own gold do so because they don't trust the status quo, especially when it comes to government-issued paper money. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get you. They point to bursts of selling on Friday, April 12, which resulted in prices plunging by more than 5%,...