One month ago, crude oil closed at 33.35. Today it settled at $32.15. In between those marks, the swing above and below $30 per barrel has been about 10% on either side of the line. It hasn’t budged out of the range. Normally, 10% is a big number. Given the painfully low price of oil, the 10% has been devalued, if not in reality, then psychologically.

Gold rose today by 1.00% (as of 3PM in New York). It was up about $12. Silver was also up but by a smaller percentage, 0.4%.

Oil and equities drove haven plays. Traders were also doing some short covering – emergency surgery to repair Monday’s larger-than-expected drop.

There is a moment when springtime is just about to pop and a beautiful warm day tells you, “Yes, yes… this is it!”

Oil booms, U.S. equities boom, Asian and European stocks also jumped, the dollar strengthens and the world seems right (except for gold’s plunge).

Gold stayed more or less steady as the session and week neared an end. Spot gold was down, but the April futures contract was up. While it’s easy enough to name suspects in today’s maintenance of the status quo in the yellow precious metal’s price, we will cite some real reasons below.

While fundamental analysis is necessarily confined by events (including rumors, fears and passing asteroids), the good news in gold is that it continues to show a life of its own beyond acting as a safe haven.

Gold’s solid, if modest, rise today is significant not only because of technical factors that will be discussed in today’s video, but because the yellow precious metal showed fundamental strength in the face of very strong up-moves in equities and crude oil.

At least for today, equities and the continually gyrating price of crude oil decoupled, leading to similarly unexpected results in other markets. Even the two benchmark oils couldn’t get on the same page.

At 3PM in New York, West Texas Intermediate has fallen about 1.40% while Brent North Sea is down 3.50%. The price of natural gas has fallen 3.00%.

Gold turned significantly lower because of the good bounce in equities and a round of profit taking. Fundamentally though, for gold, not much has changed. We are still in an uncertain climate and a solid haven is always in demand during periods of high volatility.

It’s easy to define the “what?” and the “how?” of today’s markets. Let’s start with the astounding leap in oil. The “why?” will be elusive? But do read on. The answer is below – far below.

West Texas Crude Oil flirted with $26.00 per barrel today before recovering toward $27.00. The drop was more important than yet another rumor – this time out of the Emirates – that OPEC was close to striking a deal to throttle back production and thus raise prices.