The gold gurus, Sinclair and everyone who reads this board has said for years how powerful the cartel is, other than those times that they say the cartel is ready to capitulate. So, everyone went into or stayed in precious metals and mining stocks with their eyes wide open.

The gurus should have known better, and my guess is they did (or many of them did), but refused to warn the bugs and others married to the pm's and stocks.

The tapering figured to come to an end, the question was when, really not if. Yet, many said it would never end. It may be coming to an end this year, or perhaps they throw it in neutral or reverse, but eventually it will end.

A group of people who take a view as far off the mainstream as many who post here do, are likely to be wrong, for whatever reason, good or bad. Of course, when they turn out to be right, it's really something remarkable. But chances are, they are wrong. Things were good in PM's for a long time, and in the pm stocks for a shorter period.

But we never got the blow off rise that was promised before the run was over, and for that, any many other reasons, the story goes that the gold bull is still intact. Doesn't seem that way to me.

And has Trader Dan been permanentlly retired by Eric King? Too bad, it seems his year end vacation has been extended, and Trader Dan was one of the few correct voices over the past 18 months or so.

Even the great Rob Arnott, who admittedly missed the bull in 2013 (just like me), made a call the other day on a Kingworld interview that so far has turned out very wrong - that emerging markets might be a way to go this year, I believe. I think that guy is pretty darn smart, but yet...

Sinclair - there are only so many great calls a guy can make in a lifetime, the gold to $1,650 was as good as it gets. Thereafter, the law of averages can come into play.

Stock market sure seems vulnerable for a while, but I still don't buy that pm's are a sure thing to offset that, they are a possibility, but only that.