This morning Gold has surged again to a record high of over $1130 per oz as safe haven buying and a continuing weak dollar fuel continued demand. But where is gold heading?

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph during a London gold conference, Barrick President Aaron Regent said that one could argue that Earth has reached “peak gold,” as new supplies of the ore are increasingly difficult to find.

“The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday,” the paper noted. “The key driver over recent days has been the move by India’s central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.”

Bloomberg reported that  “The metal seems set to extend higher as record low interest rates, inflation concerns, central-bank purchases and falling mine output draws a broad spectrum of investment demand,” said James Moore, analyst at TheBullionDesk.com, in a note to clients.

“We are looking to see if the dollar index breaks lower, which could push gold above $1,150 and on towards $1,180,” he said.

Another analyst stared that “This is a different type of gold rally, with support coming from both sides of the market — investment [and] fundamental,” said Darin Newsom, a senior analyst at Telvent DTN. “A certain portion of the buying interest has come from the continued weakness of the dollar, but there is more to it than that, there is some ’safe haven’ buying as well, but with copper holding firm and the Baltic Dry Index rallying, the Chinese economy seems to be gaining strength,” boosting investor confidence, he said.

And further confirmation of the  retail demand for gold comes from Laura Sperber in her Baltimore Coin Show Market Report. Sperber observered that”if you had gold, you sold”. ALL gold, was selling briskly. The demand reminded us of 1980″.

Also, news from last week that India had purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF was solid confirmation that demand may be here to stay. The view that central banks will continue to be net buyers of gold rather than net sellers (as has been the case for about the last twenty years) has many calling the Indian purchase at $1,045 an ounce the “new floor” for the gold price.

China has already doubled its gold reserves over the last six years, but the Indian move underscored how even the most traditional investors are shifting a portion of their assets into bullion.

So at this juncture, all indicators seem to point to the continued rise in gold prices, at least for the near term.

Gold Hits Record High: Time to Sell or Time to Buy?
posted by Jeff Brown, Personal Finance Blogger
I’m standing at my office bookshelf rummaging in a small box of junk… I mean, treasures. There’s a transistor radio I carried on my paper route at 14, a broken watch, some old photos… Ah, here’s what I’m looking for — my high school ring, class of ‘69. I don’t remember what I paid for it – around $100, I think. But this clunky heirloom that I wore for only a few months is worth its weight in gold. At half an ounce, according to the kitchen scale, that’s around $500.
[ Read Full Article]

Five Reasons Why Gold is the New Black – But Could Be Bad For Your Health
By Dwayne Ramakrishnan, EconomyWatch.com

It seems impossible to talk to investors at the moment without discussing gold. When I talk about gold as the latest fashion, Indians in particular will snort, since it has never gone out of fashion in Mother India. Indeed for many in India and other parts of Asia where bank accounts may not be common, gold and jewellery are a form of currency that can be handed down and accessed in times of emergency. Which when you think about it, is exactly the same for western investors and even central bankers. Gold is a hedge against fear. It has no intrinsic value. Indeed, Warren Buffet famously said
[ Read Full Article]

Gold at record highs and best time to sell
Commodity Online
EmpireGoldBuyers.com, an expert in the field of buying and selling gold, is advising consumers that now is the time to sell gold. While copper and soybeans have been past winners on the trading room floor, today’s investors are finding fiscal rewards in pure gold as it climbed to a record high above $1,040 per ounce on Tuesday, October 6th topping the previous record of $1,033.90 in March 2008. On Thursday, gold has climbed further to 1040 levels.
[ Read Full Article]

The Coming Demise of the Dollar
By Politics Plus
I’ve mentioned this in Open Threads and discussed it in comments on other blogs, but I held off reporting it here until I found an article that explains the impact well. The big news this week on the financial front was the Independent’s claim that Gulf Arabs and France, Japan, Russia and Japan were planning to move from buying oil in dollars to buying it in a basket of currencies, including gold and a new universal currency shared by the Gulf nations. Buying oil in dollars is one of the foundations of the dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency. Because the the dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency Americans have been able to borrow money for significantly less than other countries are able to. This has both made America more prosperous, and through the perverse incentives of cheap money, helped lead to the high indebtedness of American citizens and the financial crisis.
[ Read Full Article]

New Gold Record Despite Extreme Manipulation Tactics
By Patrick A. Heller
After settling on the COMEX above $1,000 for nine consecutive trading days, the price of gold was knocked down below that level at the close on Thursday, Sept. 24. It was no accident that it happened exactly then. First, there was a meeting of G-20 officials in Pittsburgh that began that day. The weakening U.S. dollar was certainly one of the major subjects. Because of the US dollar-destroying fiscal and monetary policies adopted over the past two years by the current and preceding administrations, a weak dollar has become a huge concern to other nations
[ Read Full Article]