Don't think gold will rise so much this year or even the year after. The thing with gold is that, the price will only rise when the global economy is in a rout. The worse the economy, crisis, war etc, the better for gold.

The U.S. is in a much better shape this year. Its recovery is getting traction. In Europe, there is no more rumour about breakup. Japan is so so, China hmm still not so bad.

Unless there is a major negative event around the corner, rest assured gold is not gonna go up that much.

Don't believe me? Put 20 years of historical gold prices into excel, and see when the prices went up and down.

Heh, gold went up by how much, may I ask? In the short term, movement of $50 to even $200 is possible due to market uncertainties. But there is no way it's going to shoot to $1800 or even $2000, unless a crisis happens.

The end of QE3 is imminent. Janet Yellen is gonna continue tapering at every single FOMC meeting, unless something really bad happens to the U.S.

Tell me why would gold price would continue going up? When money easing is slowly being soaked up?

True, I do agree there is a lower bound to gold price. Perhaps it won't go lower than $1100 or so, because of underlying demand for gold from bracelets, rantai etc.

I don't know where did you get you "real unemployment rate" from. But the Fed is for sure not looking at those numbers. The recovery in the U.S. economy is fragile. The unemployment rate has gone down to 7.6% but true, it was partly contributed by some leaving the labour market.

The housing market is getting stronger. The case-shiller 20 cities house price index went up 13.6% recently, the highest in several years. Both manufacturing and services PMIs are positive.

The weak labour market & low inflation rate are the two biggest problems in the US right now. Late last year, in December, I was totally convinced that the Fed is not gonna taper anytime soon. But I was proved damn wrong, the Fed reduced QE3 by $10 billion in January and another $10 billion in February.

Despite the risks that tapering brings, it seems like the Fed is convinced that US recovery will only get stronger this year, and warrants a continuous $10 billion tapering at every single FOMC meeting.