Although oil has in recent years dominated the commodity futures headlines — until it slid off the map in the latter half of last year — gold (GC) was never too far behind. The long-dormant metal entered a bull market in 2002, which culminated in the March 2008 record high well above $1,000/ounce.

Since then, gold’s road has been mostly a bumpy one — lower (Figure 1, bottom). Nonetheless, despite having sold off while the equity market collapsed in September and October (gold fell back below $700), the market found itself back above $900 in early February.