I sent this article linked to Chris Powell and Bill Murphy at GATA for a good chuckle.  Chris has turned it into worthwhile commentary:

Practially every day prompts those who consider themselves market analysts to contrive explanations for movements in the gold price, no matter how implausible. Zaner Metals in Chicago attributed today’s slight decline in the gold price to concerns about the new virus that has appeared in China:

Investors in gold are undecided about the coronavirus, with early indications that it could hurt bullion demand in China as much as boost safe-haven buying. So the yellow metal dipped again today, while palladium rebounded, making a new record high in futures trade…

“The world is reacting in a deflationary manner to the news of a spread of the pneumonia-like virus in China,” Zaner Metals said in a note. “The trade is justified in factoring in some slowing fears and that in turn has applied pressure to gold, silver, and nearly every physical commodity.

There is no indication in Investing.com’s story that Zaner Metals talked today with anyone buying or selling gold.  [I’ll add that, notwithstanding the poor quality of reporting, the idea that the spread of a virus in China is “deflationary” is outright silly.]

More important, there is no indication that before drawing any conclusions about the gold price Zaner Metals inquired with, for example, the Bank for International Settlements about any surreptitious intervention undertaken in the gold market this week by the bank or its member central banks, though such surreptitious intervention can be discerned in the footnotes of the bank’s monthly reports, like the most recent report, November’s, analyzed by GATA consultant Robert Lambourne here:

http://www.gata.org/node/19693

Central banks are the biggest participants in the gold market and yet rare is the gold market analyst who ever puts a critical question to them or reports that they refuse to answer questions about their interventions.

Rarer still is the journalist who poses such questions himself instead of merely repeating the silly contrivances offered by the market analysts. The power to create and dispense infinite money in secret helps central banks rule the world, but most of all they require the negligence of financial journalism.