Gold futures closed 2.9% down for the week, despite a rally on Friday, as the greenback rose against the euro and other major currencies.

“I see that Dennis Gartman is talking about gold again,” says Ed Steer in Casey Research.

Here are a few words from his early Thursday morning commentary….”If the governments of the world are now as concerned about inflation as we think they may be, and if they are even more concerned about the prospects for a generic, rising inflationary psychology amongst the public at large

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When gold was going for $300 an ounce and oil for $25 a barrel, it was easy to know where to put your money.

Despite Ben Bernanke’s assertion yesterday at Harvard University that the US economy is not returning to the stagflation of the 1970s, slower growth and rising inflation have many wondering what is a good investment during stagflation should the Fed chief’s bravado prove to be wrong.

Bill Bonner says it took Paul Volcker’s leadership, along with a crippling recession, to end stagflation in the 1970s:

Apparently, there’s just no stopping stocks. They just keep on trucking higher as investors forget about the recent troubles in the financial sector and focus on Merrill Lynch’s note that ‘credit markets may be “past their worst”’.

For most South African miners it was a time of darkness. But on the day that Statistics SA released truly dismal 2008 first quarter figures, a stunning debutant proved the mining sector is not all gloom.