Gold

The rising dollar took a breather today, so gold got to skip up a small fraction. Oil, however, continued its death spiral, and now speculation centers around not whether, but when, crude will touch $70 or $71.

The dollar again hammered its way through the trading village, beating on doors, setting roofs on fire, bringing down almost everything in its path.

Gold hit a four-year low today after Japan unexpectedly greatly expanded its monetary stimulus program that in the United States was called quantitative easing. The U.S. Federal Reserve just Wednesday ended its program. We don't think it's coincidence, which is fine. Let Japan assume its proper role in the world economic arena.

While certainly analysts are interpreting the latest FOMC statements as being strongly hawkish, today, other factors took over. The stock market soared - a large portion of the rise was due to one stock, though - Visa. The dollar was down, though not significantly, but oil was holding hands with gold on their dual price slide.

At first blush, it would seem that today's FOMC comments following the October meeting are hurting gold. Indeed, the negatives always come out before the positives regroup and cooler heads prevail.

We all knew that QE3 was ending. We've known that since the first tapering moves began. It was as inevitable as the first cool breezes of autumn.

Big "what-ifs" are on everyone's mind today as we await the initial news release from the Fed's Open Market Committee meeting.

Additionally, even though there was some soft data from the U.S. regarding orders for durable goods, consumer sentiment, the thing that counts most as we go into the holiday buying season, was up, up, up.

Gold swam in waters inhabited by creatures taking a nip here and a bite there. No one factor is holding overwhelming sway. Most of us watching the precious metals think that tomorrow and Wednesday's FOMC meeting has traders and investors back on their heels without much real reason.

As the week closes, so soon will the month close. Gold took a loss for the week, but should be up for the month. Today we are experiencing a bit of paralysis by analysis, the dollar's strength adding to the gold price while regular trading heads it in another direction.

Caterpillar, 3M and GM all posted better-than-expected Q3 results - far, far better than analysts had been predicting, in fact - and the U.S. stock markets reacted heartily, adding anywhere from 1.3% to 1.7% as the afternoon wore on, NASDAQ reacting most emphatically.