After briefly crashing through the $900 level gold has quickly recovered to $915 at 11.00 am E.T. today, Thursday.

It looks as though our previous best guess that $905 would prove the low point was a good call.

We anticipate that the price will fluctuate either side of $915 until after mid September by which time the fundamentals pointing to a break to above $1000 assert themselves.

Clouding the market at the present time are the liquidity problems being experienced throughout the financial industry.

For example when investors withdraw money from hedge funds or mutual funds to meet their personal cash demands and obligations, the funds have to raise the money to pay out by closing positions.

It is most likely that profitable positions will be closed, looks better on the balance sheet and the fund managers can deny that they are not just short-term opportunists.

As we know gold, silver and PGMs have all enjoyed a profitable run for several years now.

There are of course a multitude of other fundamental factors to try to take into account but for the average investor the two most important drivers are the performance of the dollar and its effect on inflation, US economic activity, meaning employment, retail sales, imports and exports etc., and the link to the price performance of oil.

We have observed that there seems to be signs that the performance of the oil price is not being as directly mirrored by gold as in the past. Sooner or later the divergence will become clear and gold and silver prices will visibly loosen the tie to oil.

On a final note PGMs have taken a significant hit, in our opinion heavily oversold on sentiment only and not backed up by either an anticipated fall in demand or a supply surplus.

We have taken the opportunity to pick up a couple of likely looking producers that that have no interests in South Africa or any politically questionable countries.

Get it right and miners will give you a better return on your investment buck than buying bullion or a metal ETF.

If you like the prospects for gold but feel safer with a spread of miners take a look at Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX).

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