After the break in gold prices this month, a fair amount of questions popped up ‘round the water cooler about the money flows into and out of the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV). The queries were prompted by the dissonance between the money flows and share prices in the SPDR Gold Shares Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD) examined in a preceding column (see "Gold's Waning Strength").

Real-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -1.9%

We could be in for some big doin's in gold.

Over the past month, the price of gold sank, taking the SPDR Gold Shares Trust (NYSE Arca: GLD) with it. Many gold aficionados were perplexed by the seemingly disparate buildup in GLD's bullion stores and the softness in the trust's share price. After all, GLD's bullion hoard reached a record 1,320 tonnes on June 30, but its share price had peaked five days before at the double-top level near $123.

Well, it's happening again. Over the past couple of trading sessions, the rolling 30-day correlation of gold to the S&P 500 Composite has turned positive. The correlation had been rising—actually becoming less negative—throughout the first two weeks of July. Then, on Friday, the correlation punched through to positive territory. In all, the coefficient's moved up 44 percentage points this month.

Real-time Monetary Inflation (last 12 months): -1.6%

Gold turned in a mixed performance against the world's reserve currencies this week, falling 0.6 percent against the euro and 0.2 percent vs. sterling. Bullion gained 1.9 percent in yen and 0.3 percent in Swiss francs.

With iShares slashing costs on its physical gold ETF, can IAU now siphon away market share from GLD?

So far, the newly created option market for the ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (NYSE Arca: SGOL) offers very few, um, options for users.

Back by popular demand, the Kitco metals market analyst explains what's really driving the gold market, and why, based on fundamentals, gold should be closer to $800/oz than $8,000.

Every market has its bulls and its bears. The gold market, in particular, has a rather vocal contingent of bulls. Some of them, though, are starting to fret over the diminishing strength of the gold market.