Today gold rose modestly, slowly and steadily, early in the day before settling back, holding on to a roughly $5.00 gain into afternoon trading.

You don't tug on superman's cape...
- Jim Croce, from "You Don't Mess Around With Jim"

Or should we say, "don't fight the feelin'?" There are a lot of ways to look at what now looks like the inevitability in gold's falling prices.

Briefly, let us remember those who died thirteen years ago today in New York, at the Pentagon, and in the skies over Pennsylvania. Let us remember their families, who have suffered the loss as well.
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Let the hair pulling commence.

Gold seemed to rise and fall as if on big rolling seas today. After regular-hours trading, it appeared that gold would end more or less unchanged.

That was not to be. As the late afternoon session wore on, gold took a significant, though not catastrophic drive that was partially, though not wholly, exacerbated by dollar strength.

It seems all markets took a breather today.

Those that were up were up only a little. Those that were down, only were down a touch.

Sooner or later the dollar had to run out of steam. The best move was in the euro, which gained about 0.37% on the day. The yen and G.B. pound were virtually unchanged.

Danger and delight grow on one stalk.
        - Scottish Proverb

Scotland is about to vote for disunion with the United Kingdom. While it is (forgive the pun) a royal pain for the rest of the kingdom, the Scots are in for a rough ride. There will be a hundred questions to be resolved before anything of note can be accomplished.

Last Friday our headline on The Gold Forecast Weekend Report said "Ukraine Migraine." Fighting seems to have ebbed there for the moment, and, just as fierce battle did not give us a lift in precious metals, the cease fire did not give us a dip.

Quite to the contrary, gold and silver rose equally in percentage terms today. But there were other reasons they popped a bit.

It's amusing to ponder that only last year the heads of state of China and Russia were calling for another entity to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Well, someone ought to let both the Chinese and the Russians in on the new joke. The dollar is looking like the world champ again.

A mild round of bargain hunting or bounce buying characterizes today's gold and silver trading. Put a big emphasis on mild.

The slightly eased temperature in Ukraine did not help matters for bulls. Heck, if an invasion by Russia didn't help precious metals, why would peace talks?

Never mind the Russian tanks in Ukraine and the idle threats against NATA by the resurgent Russians. Never mind ISIS, beheadings, Somalia military actions, the deflation of Europe, the teetering of Venezuela.

Never mind nuttin' else. Here's why gold and silver dropped like rock in the ocean today.