Ofcourse this market is rigged. The bullion banks combine rigging with psychology plays. Just thinking loud:

Confusion among fund managers reigns. Everyday for the last month I have heard many more European and Asian fundmanagers recommending investing in Gold than ever before. However, there are still many fund managers (particularly in the USA) totally ignorant and they seem to see a US dollar strengthening even more from here and thus Gold is no option for them. Combine that to those that have to sell of due to de leveraging and you get a zero sum.

The cartel of bullion banks is playing out this confusion and probably positions itself on the buy side, while it now and then kills off any bullish behaviour of Gold. How, who knows? When they let it go, they let it go a lot in one day. Then again, suppression. The result is you get 1 big upday as against 10-15 slight down days, which weighs on the psychology of gold bulls.

This play is close to its end, because the amount of fund demand for gold is exploding across the spectrum, while the deleveraging is about to end. There is little scope left for suppression IMO.

Is this explaining today's price behaviour. No, I don't think so. That's why I also referred the other day to something we must be missing. Some one said that missing factor is an old stockpile of gold in Asia. I don't know.