Why has gold been down?

Originally published at Stockhouse.com. Many institutional investors had to sell whether they wanted to or not After all, in spite of some short-term fixes, there remains no real resolution to the sovereign debt issues in many European countries. We're certainly not spending less money in the U.S., and now we're bailing out Europe via currency swaps with the European Central Bank. Shouldn't gold be rising? Yes, but nothing happens in a vacuum. There are some simple explanations as to why gold remains in a funk. The MF Global bankruptcy, the seventh-largest in U.S. history, forced a high degree of liquidation of commodities futures contracts, including gold. Many institutional investors had to sell whether they wanted to or not. This is similar to why big declines in the stock market can force funds and other large investors to sell some gold to raise cash for margin calls or meet redemption requests. The dollar has been rising. Money fleeing the Eurozone has to go somewhere, and some of it is heading into U.S. bonds, which means first converting the foreign currency into dollars. It's tax-loss selling season, something that's also impacting gold stocks. Funds and individual investors are selling underwater positions for tax purposes. Funds also sell their big winners to lock in gains for the year and dress up quarterly reports. These forces have all acted to depress the gold price. Continue reading this article here.