Shareprice never traces a straight line to the top! Exceptions do exist, ie, Nortel, Bre-X, etc. (More often than not though, once the "top" is reached, the line down is linear and straight!)

Following are observations by James West, who-ever the he$$ he is:

"It is utterly astounding to think that gold and oil could still yet double, more or less, from today’s levels. With gasoline prices stretching the budgets of most North American families, the price of auto fuels in a $200 barrel of oil world would easily be well over $6 a gallon.

The only real questions to consider are 1) when will we see these prices, and 2) how can I hedge against these price risks. In terms of question 1, unless you are planning on checking out in the most profound sense of the term, the question is more or less irrelevant. In that it is a given that your income will not put on the same kind of height as these prices are, positioning now for this future is of prime importance.

The obvious hedges against the destructive effects of these prices against your savings, should you have any, and investments, is to reduce your consumption of oil while increasing your investment in both gold and oil.

There will be a continuing chorus from ill-informed would-be oracles who will tell you the price of oil is going to decline with U.S. economic growth, and that gold has reached its peak and will now observe the traditional decrease in cyclical value, which you must strive to ignore.

What we still haven’t seen in this gold market, which is very much still in a long-term bull mode, is the wholesale entry into the market for physical gold and all of its derivative manifestations by mainstream investors. Despite its remarkable performance since 2003, it remains a fringe investment, a mere hedge in the portfolio against other factors.

We are certainly in a collective state of suspended animation as investors. We are still stunned by the uppercut of real estate prices tumble and the body-blow of the subsequent cinching down of credit availability. Large pools of capital are now being invested into funds that will proceed to accumulate distressed mortgages and the assets backing them at severely discounted levels, akin to the arrival of carrion birds at the end of a pitched battle. Is it any surprise that the vultures of capital who will gorge on the mangled financial corpses are the very same ones who orchestrated the destruction? Only in America."

"and Canada!"

Or should it be "Oh Canada!?"

RUF