Well, three years ago in fact...

OLD (or smart or broke) ENOUGH to remember Bear Stearns? asks Adrian Ash at BullionVault.

You know, the Wall Street legend that blew itself up with toxic mortgage debt 6 months before Lehmans and a full 12 months before quantitative easing began...?

Here's a reminder...

You can see the exploding bank right there...that little spike just above $1000 per ounce in the Gold Price...three years ago to the very day.

Here at BullionVault, we'd already had the world's very first Thousand Dollar Gold Trade four days earlier, when gold first tip-toed up to that level. A Canadian user, seeing the wholesale-gold "spot" price nearing four digits, had offered and sold his five ounces of gold – stored securely in Zurich, Switzerland – to a Hong Kong investment fund for $1000 a pop.

Come the Monday, and as Bear was sold to J.P.Morgan for 7 cents on the Dollar, gold then hit what would prove an 18-month top. Which made our Canadian client look awfully smart, not least as everything bar the Dollar and Japanese Yen tumbled into the black hole marked "Lehmans".

Selling what had doubled in barely two years also looked smart...and might still today. Gold's rate of ascent since 17 March 2008 has been better than stocks, bonds and pretty much everything else (except Silver Bullion). But at 36% in the last 3 years, it would seem to have slowed.

Whatever rough beast gold began riding a decade ago, however, didn't stop slouching its way forwards when Bear Stearns collapsed. Nor has it stopped slouching its way forwards yet.

Looking to Buy Gold today...?