Interesting piece on today at the office. Buying opportunities should be good toward the end of the year:

METALS STOCKS Gold accelerates losses as oil falls, dollar gains By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch Last update: 11:10 a.m. EDT July 23, 2008 Comments: 10 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures accelerated their losses Wednesday, declining as much as 3%, as falling crude oil prices and a firmer U.S. dollar weighed on demand for the precious metal. Gold for August delivery dropped $20.50 to $928 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier, the contract hit an intraday low of $922 an ounce. "We seem to be in the midst of a large-scale commodities sell-off," said Zachary Oxman, a senior trader at Wisdom Financial. "Moves down in oil and grains and moves up in the dollar seem to be pushing gold extremely lower here," Oxman said. "The stock market is catching a solid bid, and it feels much like early in February/March when we saw this very thing." The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index (CRB: reuters jefferies crb index price News, chart, profile, more Last: 415.64-5.52-1.31%
11:05am 07/23/2008
CRB 415.64, -5.52, -1.3%) , a benchmark gauging the prices of major commodities, fell 1.5%. On Wall Street, U.S. stocks rose, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA: DJIA News, chart, profile, more Last:

DJIA, , ) gaining 0.7% in intraday trading. See Market Snapshot. On Tuesday, gold futures dropped $15.20 to end at $948.50 an ounce. "A broadly firmer dollar came in tandem with softer crude prices, forcing investors and short-term funds to liquidate positions," said analysts at Action Economics. Oil futures continued to decline Wednesday as concerns faded that Hurricane Dolly will hit major oil infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico and the Energy Department reported that U.S. crude inventories fell less than expected, down 1.6 million barrels to 295.3 million barrels in the week ending July 18. Crude oil for September delivery fell $2.12 to $126.30 a barrel on the Nymex. See Futures Movers. Dollar strength also weighed on dollar-denominated gold. The dollar was mostly higher Wednesday, taking its cue from lower crude-oil futures prices. "The U.S. dollar is broadly higher as the global markets and economy continues to pull back from the edge of the abyss that it was steering into a week ago," wrote strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman. See Currencies. The dollar index (DXY: US Dollar Index Future - Spot Price News, chart, profile, more Last: 72.70+0.25+0.35%
11:05am 07/23/2008
DXY 72.70, +0.25, +0.4%) , a measure of the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, gained 0.4% to 72.699. On Tuesday, the dollar was boosted by Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Plosser's comments that very accommodative monetary policy needs to be reversed and that rate hikes will need to begin soon. "Gold is likely to remain on the defensive in the coming sessions," said James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com, in a research note. "While expectation of a U.S. rate hike have bolstered the dollar, the Fed is unlikely to make sharp rate increases for fear of damaging economic growth, and the question remains as to how many more financial institutions the Fed/Treasury is willing to bail out before it allows nature to run its course," Moore said. Moore continues to be bullish on gold over the medium to longer term, but he expects gold to trade closer to $900 before establishing a base. Also on the Nymex, September silver fell 49 cents, or 2.8%, to $17.51 an ounce and October platinum dropped $58.30 to $1,749.90 an ounce. September palladium dropped $23.50 to $388 an ounce, and September copper fell 5 cents to $3.64 a pound. On the equities side, the Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI: amex gold bugs index equal-$ weight News, chart, profile, more Last: 412.08-20.42-4.72%
11:35am 07/23/2008
HUI 412.08, -20.42, -4.7%) dropped 3.7% to 416.68 points. The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD: spdr gold trust gold shs News, chart, profile, more Last: 91.41-1.65-1.77%
11:15am 07/23/2008
GLD 91.41, -1.65, -1.8%) fell 1.7% to $91.46, the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV: ishares silver trust ishares News, chart, profile, more Last: 174.51-3.08-1.73%
11:15am 07/23/2008
SLV 174.51, -3.08, -1.7%) fell 1.4% to $175.06 and the Market Vectors-Gold Miners ETF (GDX: Polya Lesova is a MarketWatch reporter based in New York.