Gold in the past few weeks has sort of worn a rut, tracing and retracing its steps up and down the $367-390 price range. There seems to be tremendous support below $370, and an equally strong ceiling at $390. Yesterday gold traded above $390 for much of the day, but just couldn’t sustain those heights.

Due to this meandering of the gold price, business in the US physical market has started to slow. Inevitably when a commodity lingers within a price range over a long time, the majority of buyers and sellers who wanted in or out at that level eventually get their business done. Here at Onlygold, a steady stream of bullion product is coming in from liquidations, and retail demand is moderate, steady, but nothing to write home about.

This current slump in retail off-take signals that we are far from the tipping point in terms of US physical demand. That retreat only postpones the inevitable.

At some point among US investors, attention will start to be paid to gold.

Meanwhile, our customers of the past few years can pause in wonder at their 30-50% return on gold portfolios held for 2-3 years.

Far be it from me to gloat or celebrate but the fact is that from sheer lucky timing, this website serves a client base over 95% of whom are in a profit position. Many of you reading this now have made money on gold, and I’m not talking about the kind of “flash profits” that we’ve seen from the recent six-month long bounce in equities, but on a solid 31-month performance of gold versus the US dollar.

As I wrote here two years ago, it didn't hurt that the debut of this website on the Internet’s search engines in November of 2000 happened to coincide with a shaky stock market, sinking interest rates, and some of the cheapest inflation-adjusted gold prices that we had seen in decades.

Today, we have gold prices on the cusp of $400. That's significant number, and will probably prove to be a formidable price barrier.

But looking farther ahead, it's gold at the $500 mark that will get everyone's attention, from the White House on down. $500 gold reminds people of the Jimmy Carter era and gold's breathtaking sprint from $500 to over $800 in just a few weeks time, back during 1979-80.

And no matter where gold prices are ultimately headed, no President wants to see gold prices break $800 on his watch.