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.

In 1967 the group 5^th Dimension asked “Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?” in their song Up, Up and Away.

The way the Kansas City Royal slipped into the World Series with little prior heralding, large speculators have entered the gold market, adding the yellow precious metal to their positions. Strikingly, this includes a wide variety of managed funds across the board.

Before bouncing off its low for the day, back to the high 1230s, we were stopped out of our trade.

It's better to take the profit, especially with the weekend on the horizon and the uncertainty in Europe hovering about for a few days.