Gold price slid 2.5% Thursday morning, declining $60.20 to $1,815 per ounce

The gold price slid 2.5% Thursday morning, declining $60.20 to $1,815 per ounce. After trading to a new all-time high early yesterday, the price of gold has plunged $92 over the past 30 hours. Cyclically-sensitive assets climbed higher with stock prices rising 1% as measured by the most actively traded S&P 500 futures contract. Oil rose 1% to $85.90 per barrel while copper gained 1.1% to $4.12 per pound.

Speculation that President Obama will announce an economic stimulus package at a press conference tomorrow helped buoy stocks and commodities. The U.S. dollar, which has rallied for six consecutive days as measured by the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), moved lower versus its foreign counterparts.Weakness in the gold price yesterday was fueled in part by a relatively rare occurrence in recent months – an encouraging piece of U.S. economic data. The ISM services index for August rose to 53.3, north of the 51.0 consensus estimate among economists. The better than expected report helped calm fears – at least temporarily – that the U.S. economy is headed toward another recession.

Analysts at HSBC thought as much, where in a note to clients they wrote that “Central banks have shifted to exchange rate policy aiming to have the weakest currency in town. This is a game that everyone can’t win… but that doesn’t mean they won’t keep trying…One currency that will benefit most from this is the one that will not complain, gold.”

Long-time gold bull and Dow Theory Letters author Richard Russell offered a similar comment recently. “The Russell opinion is that we’re seeing the slow but inevitable end of fiat irredeemable money,” he wrote. “Gold will be the last man standing. Even the central banks have reversed their gold-having stand and are now buying gold”.

Russell went on to assert that “Gold is the true money that no central bank can print. No wonder sophisticated investors accumulate it…The prescription that central banks offer is to keep printing their garbage-money. The world is beginning to understand.”

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