What trips up gold?

I've been getting lots of questions about gold lately. From a contrarion standpoint, that by itself could signal that the end is near. On the one hand, Fed policy would suggest that gold's upward trend is still intact. On the other hand, Terry Coxon provides a number of reasons why gold might falter:

1. Punitive regulations forcing people to sell their gold is one reason. It's happened before, but unlikely this time as we're no longer on the gold standard. A punitive tax on gold would be more probable.

2. Deflation, brought on by deleveraging, which in turn is brought on by say another leg down in real estate, would certainly hurt gold. Bond yields are on the rise, and as a result, so are mortgage rates; however, more quantitative easing would solve that problem, and the Fed basically has issued a blank cheque;

The list of reasons gold trips up goes on-and-on, but perhaps the best reason is that at some point, other assets, including those that produce income, look cheap relative to gold, and so money leaves gold for these other assets.

GB