However, the potential catalysts for a return to a full blown financial crisis are far from passed and gold may yet shine again.

In a final poll at the Second edition of the Dubai Precious Metals Conference 63 per cent of delegates thought gold was heading towards $3,000 by 2014 and 37 per cent voted for a tumble towards $1,000.

Will your dollars have less or more purchasing power in the future? Fact is, you can use a simple yardstick, make one simple investing decision, and be right either way.

I do not think the U.S. market will go up a lot from here. I rather think there is now considerable downside risk.”

Instead of being suckered into holding intrinsically worthless paper assets, a more intelligent and well-informed response favors increasing one’s personal stockpile of physical precious metals.

Turkey’s move one and a half years ago to allow commercial banks to count gold deposits toward their reserve requirements potentially could be emulated by other central banks,

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new high today, but don’t trust the Dow – it doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

Precious metals investors are not going to win the game in the paper market. We have to win it in the physical market. More and more people are taking delivery of their physical gold.

What would happen if all open contracts on the COMEX would not be offset and physical delivery would be demanded?

“A lot of people have been scared out of the market, but then the market makes new highs,” Schiff says. “The fundamental case for gold is as strong as it’s ever been.”