An unusual day in gold trading, without argument.

After today's weekly new unemployment claims, many investors thought gold would make a good bet. The one-week snapshot seemed to be talking awfully loudly to them. In fact, the texture behind the weekly claims is much more positive.

Wherever you look there is a battle raging - except in equities, which seem to be steamrolling their through the autumn. The lure of the stock markets has been pushing just about every other kind of investment down, although we all know the U.S.