????數百年來，黃金曾經一度作為全球貨幣體系的基礎，政治上傾向自由派的投資者尤其青睞它。在此類人士看來，許多政府領導人和央行都是不稱職的，他們如今把貨幣體系的基礎建立在了浮動匯率制而非硬金屬的價值之上。

????黃金狂熱者在本世紀頭10年可謂春風得意，當時，赤字上升加之美元大幅貶值，黃金迎來了自通脹嚴重的上世紀七八十年代以來的最好時期。金融危機進一步增加了黃金的吸引力，當時，全球政府看似都無力阻止銀行系統徹底崩潰。幾年后，歐債危機進一步強化了這一觀點，即黃金價格只可能繼續上漲。

????然而，令金本位者困惑不解的是，金價于2011年秋季達到峰值后，就一路下跌到現在。

????The shiny metal, which for centuries was the basis of the global monetary system, is beloved particularly by investors whose political beliefs tilt libertarian. These are the sort of people who are convinced of the incompetence of political leaders and central banks that now run a monetary system based on floating exchange rates rather than the value of hard metals.

????Gold enthusiasts had their moment in the sun during the 2000s, when the combination of rising deficits and a sharply falling dollar helped give the precious metal its best stretch since the inflation-racked 1970s and 1980s. The financial crisis only increased gold’s appeal, when it seemed like governments around the globe might not be able to save their banking systems from total collapse. A few years later, the European debt crisis added even more weight to the notion that the price of gold could only go in one direction: up.

????Since gold’s peek in the fall of 2011, though, it’s been in a free-fall, confounding the gold-bug community.

????Ritholtz財富管理公司的巴里?里薩茲指出，金本位者最近幾個月提出的（金價將上漲）論斷沒有一條靈驗。

????瑞士選民否決了要求瑞士央行——瑞士國家銀行以黃金形式持有至少20%資產（該行資產總額為5200億瑞士法郎）的提案。另一個傳言是，印度將削減黃金進口關稅，黃金需求將猛增，但印度最終決定維持關稅不變。最新的臆斷是，一家名為Goldcore的公司聲稱，新推出的黃金版蘋果手表，每年將消耗“高達756公噸黃金……約相當于全球黃金年開采量的三分之一”。這簡直荒唐到可笑了。

????實際情況恰恰相反，隨著美國退出量化寬松，加之美國經濟明顯好轉，美元持續走高，金價因此不斷下跌。但是，金價總有一天會觸底。而黃金畢竟不同于那些外強中干的低價股。黃金飾品的需求將持續強勁，特別是隨著中國和印度的富裕階層不斷壯大。與此同時，世界各國央行仍持有大量黃金，而且黃金作為避險工具的觀念短期內也不會消失。

????比安科研究公司分析師吉姆?比安科提出，金價可能已經觸底。他的觀點首先建立在“技術分析”上，即通過觀察股票或期貨走勢圖，以歷史走勢來預測未來走向。較之2011年的峰值，金價已下跌近50％，這是一個臨界點，技術分析派人士認為，股票和大宗商品在達到該臨界點時，通常會觸底反彈。

????其次，比安科指出，黃金交易所交易基金（Gold ETF）的數據顯示，金融危機后幾年跟風投資黃金的資金眼下大都已經離場。那幾年金價大漲，部分原因在于ETF使普通投資者無需太大本錢，就能輕輕松松的分享金價上漲。如今，ETF所持有的黃金數量低于2010年的水平，而金融危機后的金價攀升基本發生在2010年后。

????As Barry Ritholtz of Ritholtz Wealth Management points out, none of the arguments put forward by the gold-bug community in recent months have actually panned out:

????The ballot proposal requiring the Swiss National Bank to hold at least 20 percent of its 520 billion franc ($523 billion) balance sheet in gold was rejected by Swiss voters. Another tale: India was going to cut its import duty on gold, leading to soaring demand. But India decided to maintain the duty. The latest bout of wishful thinking was that a gold version of the new Apple watch would consume “up to 756 metric tonnes of gold per year . . . this equates to roughly a third of gold’s total annual global mine supply,” according to a company called Goldcore . . . that fantasy was laughable on its face.

????Instead, the continuing strengthening of the dollar—a trend bolstered by the end of QE and the apparent strengthening of the U.S. economy—has continued to force gold prices downward. But the bottom must come at some point. Gold, after all, isn’t some pumped-up penny stock. There will always be strong and consistent demand for the metal as jewelry, especially in a world where nations like China and India have rapidly growing affluent classes. Meanwhile, central banks across the world maintain large holdings of the metal, and the idea that gold is a hedge against catastrophe isn’t going away anytime soon.

????Analyst Jim Bianco of Bianco Research argues that gold may have already reached its bottom. His first point is from the “technical analysis” school, which looks at historical patterns in stock charts to predict future movements. Gold has nearly fallen 50% from its 2011 peek, a critical level for believers in technical analysis, when stocks and commodities often rebound.

????Second, Bianco points out that if you look at Gold ETF data, much of the dumb money that jumped on the gold bandwagon during the frantic post-crisis years has left. Gold’s big post-crisis surge was driven in part by ETFs that allowed average investors to get in on gold’s rise easily and inexpensively. But today, the gold holdings of ETFs are lower than they were in 2010, before much of gold’s crisis-driven ascent.