Gold Futures Settle at $732.80 on the COMEX Division of New York Mercantile Exchange

Even though gold futures for December delivery settled at $732.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, a drop of $13.70, taking into consideration the current economic climate, it's not too bad, as most market forces are working against the yellow metal at this time.

Even so, we may test new recent lows before we see gold start to rise steadily again.

Deleveraging continues to strengthen the U.S. dollar, and gold probably won't be behaving like it normally does until that starts to unwind at a mature level. That's still a relative unknown, even at this stage of the economic crisis.

As the crisis starts to reach its apex, we should also help gold gain in price. We may be nearing the center of the storm in the U.S. soon, but it's impossible to tell because we really haven't any past experience to measure it by. It does seem that we're nearing the eye of the economic hurricane, and that will bode well for gold.

To me the important question for gold isn't when we begin to reach bottom, but how long we're going to stay there. It looks like it will be for some time, and that will definitely be positive for gold prices going ahead.