Speculation of a December taper is blowing away with the autumn leaves and the dollar rebound seems to have run its course, reverting to the downtrend it experienced for much of the 3rd quarter into October. These factors, of course, help gold, silver and all dollar-denominated commodities.  

But, will there be tapering or not? Certainly not if the jobs report is wishy-washy as expected.

Chintan Karnani, chief market analyst at Insignia Consultants, New Delhi, said though that he believes that "the market obsession with tapering is useless."

"They [traders and investors] need to focus on other factors such as gold investment demand, physical gold premiums, physical gold demand in the U.S. and Europe - which I see increasing as the year progresses and into the first quarter of 2014 - and last but not the least, gold option price movement," said Karnani.

"What will investors look forward to when tapering is just reduced to below $20 billion?" he said, noting that he expects the current $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program will be tapered to below $20 billion in the first installment.

With all due respects to Mr. Karnani, the first cut of the tapering will not see a $65 billion decline. That's just plain crazy talk. And, the Fed/ECB is the dog wagging the tail of gold investing, driving such other factors as physical demand, premiums and option movements. 

Although gold purists will disagree, the yellow metal is a conceptual instrument that hedges against inflation, against rapid currency movements in general, against insecurity in the world's political systems and interactions. 

People buy "an option" because they think the pricing is headed one way or another based on real factors and technical analysis. The Fed happens to be the largest factor right now affecting the market. Tomorrow it may be that a hostile nation shuts down the Straits of Hormuz. Or North Korea targets Japan or the United States with atomic weapons. Gold, like currencies, like other commodities, are subject to a basketful of influences. 

Consensus is coming together that the ECB, led by Mario Draghi, has few options open to it to rekindle Europe's growth. If they do much in the way of rate lowering, the second-class Euro countries will be affected much like emerging economies are affected by U.S. monetary policies - negatively. Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland can scarce afford more ill winds in their economic sails. 

Today, dollar weakness caused by the sideways movement of the euro allowed gold to get a bigger rise under its belt than it would have achieved under just "normal trading." Silver also benefited from the same conditions, although systemically silver has been oversold recently, so it is even more robust right now.  

The beat goes on.