Gold plunged today as the steep but orderly decline from a "Matterhorn" top gave way to a stampede for the exits as blind panic set in - normally a symptom of a bottom. The "Matterhorn" top is so called because it involves a market that ascends in a steep uptrend, then without any kind of pause to mark out a normal top distribution area, it goes into a steep decline that more or less mirrors the ascent that preceded it. The Matterhorn top is, of course, most familiar to Swiss investors.

Despite the plethora of pundits reading "the last rites" for the dollar, it did as we expected and broke higher from its base area. This development really put the boot into the Precious Metals - so much for those who loftily proclaimed that gold had "broken free from its inverse relationship with the dollar" - how can it break free of the currency it is priced in? - the notion is absurd.