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.

Today we witnessed a virtual meltdown in the US equities markets with the Dow Jones industrial average currently trading off about 300 points plus on the day. At the same time we are witnessing the US dollar under pressure.

When the dollar grows this strong, it's almost impossible to resist. As the trading day winds down, the dollar has pulled gold down over $9.00. The dollar is up against the euro by about 0.70%, unusual in some respects because it's clear that the Fed is going to keep rates where they are for some time to come, and certainly the Europeans can't lower interest rates unless they go negative.

The pattern we've seen fundamentally in the current rally is continuing today.

U.S. equities decline and the dollar drops. Although, there is evidence forming that what we are seeing in the stock markets is a dip and not a full-blown "correction." Nevertheless, it has been good for gold bulls, the side of trading we are in on at the moment.