Gold prices have been making gains on the back of crude’s ascent and are up for the third week in a row in London trade. This from Bloomberg:

Gold advanced in London, heading for a third consecutive weekly gain, as rising crude-oil prices spurred demand for the metal as a hedge against inflation. Silver and platinum also climbed.

Crude oil traded in New York has jumped 37 percent this year and reached a record yesterday. Euro-region consumer prices rose 3.3 percent in April from a year earlier after jumping 3.6 percent in March, the most in almost 16 years.

Doug Casey quotes Nick Ruggiero, a trader at Eagle Futures Inc. in New York, who noted gold’s recent link to oil and said, “You’ve got to be cautious because when you do get a big sell-off in oil, all commodities are going to get hit hard.”

And how much does the paper gold market influence the metal’s price? Plenty, according to Jim Sinclair of Jsmineset.com, also quoted by Doug in CaseyResearch.com.

“It would be bullish to shut down the US market for gold,” Sinclair writes, “because then you would have a thin market with a positive Euro bent on gold and a more positive global market would be created.

“No access for major traders will be denied, that you can be sure of. I would love to see US trading stopped in paper gold. That would be good for $150 on the upside after less than 24 hours. The poor COT would not be able to create the influence on the global market they do with the aid of the US paper market cabal.”