Gold

Bargain hunters, bottom fish, and short covering traders sent prices back into positive territory on Monday after Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said, with an important set of caveats, that tapering will become increasingly likely as long as the labor market continues to improve.

Strong, stronger, strongest. That's how we can best describe the economic news that this week streamed out of the United States, official and unofficial. And, like many aspects of growth, sentiment counts.

There is a flurry of economic reporting activity this week. The first out of the gate, ADP's labor report, seems to have initially depressed gold prices, then that dip inspired investors to step in on bargain-hunting and short covering.

Gold essentially held steady today in advance of more data due out later this week from the U.S. Department of Labor. Many analysts and traders are figuring that, one way or another, employment data will drive the FOMC meeting later this month and into 2014.

Being on the right side of a trade is comforting.

Gold prices dropped Monday when a better-than-expected U.S. factory report beat expectations and fueled demand for the dollar by shoring up expectations that the Federal Reserve will begin to scale back monetary stimulus programs in early 2014.

Gold turned higher today in thin trading on a slow roller coaster day.

Gold saw its worse price drop in November since June for a variety of reasons, some of them right on, others terribly misguided. But prices are about 5% lower for the month, regardless of the quality of analysis.

The Dow, S&P and NASDAQ are all up healthily today.

 The monetary conditions that are creating the boom in equities is, as we go deeper into quantitative easing is turning out now to be bad for gold and silver. The effect has operated on two curves, gold on one and equities on another.

The chief fundamental driver in the gold market today was the nuclear accords the West has almost signed with Iran. There is a subplot on the international military diplomacy stage, as well: China and Japan.

Flying in stealth formation with other facets of the FOMC minutes from October's meeting, appeared a few lines that should be at least intriguing to gold investors. They may sketch out Ben Bernanke's parting gift to the economy and perhaps to those who are hoping gold will price higher in the months to come.

Without any fresh news, we are left with some odds and ends on fundamentals.