The spot gold price eventually closed marginally down at $US514.90/oz ($A689.45/oz) and Tobin Gorey from Commonwealth Securities stuck by forecasts the gold price would hit $US550/oz and consolidate.

“If you look at the traditional market in terms of supply and demand, there’s always a big investor pendulum in there that swings the market around a bit, both on the downside, and on the upside on this occasion,” he told MiningNews.net.

“That pendulum has gotten bigger…the investors that want to be involved in gold has expanded by a large amount of money over time … particularly now.”

An analyst from A.G Edwards & Sons in the United States told Bloomberg the gold market was continuing to rise because so many people are throwing money at it having seen the strong run.

However, a ScotiaMocatta precious metals director told Reuters the gold price hike was sentiment-driven and when it finally came to an end the pull-back was going to be aggressive, in the order of $US30 on the downside.

The bug didn’t really catch on with the Australian 'golds' this morning, with most posting marginal gains, while others were slightly off.

Newcrest’s intra-day high pushed the $22 mark at $21.94, with the stock up 38c to $21.86 in midday trade, while Kingsgate Consolidated was up 8c (2.1%) to $3.89.

Oxiana was up 5c (3.6%) to $1.46, Croesus was up 1.5c (5.5%) to 29c, Agincourt was up 4.5c (3.4%) to $1.37, and Lihir was up 8c (3.8%) to $2.19.

Bendigo Mining was up 0.5%, Resolute Mining remained unchanged while Dominion Mining, Perseverance Corp, and Gallery Gold were all slightly off by 0.6%, 1.5% and 1.1% respectively.

Amongst the explorers and would-be miners, Tianshan Goldfields was off 2% to 25c, Avoca was down 1.6% to 62c, while BMA Gold was up 3% to 34c, and Ballarat Goldfields was up 1.4% to 35c.