From my own reading - reasons

gold went down so far - 1) Plunge Protection Team (per

Marty Zweig "don't fight the fed" - if they drop rates, the US

markets are forced up) 2) Options expiry last weekend -

Goldmn Sachs was out of the money, so they pushed the

close such that they would be in the money 3) dire

circumstances were already priced into gold, so it

needed a consolidation anyways 4) Bear Stearns assets

selloff.

There you have it / cedar