Based on the some of the stories appearing in the mainstream financial media in recent days, a good example being Gold Sheds ‘Can’t Lose’ Status: Now, No One Wants It at CNBC, you’d think that the end is nigh for the yellow metal.

Former CNBC personality Jeff Macke offers up Gold Prices Plunge! The Trend Is Not Your Friend (be careful, this has one of those annoying auto-play videos) in which he talks about having traded the metal for a whopping three years now and that recent price action constitutes “Humpty Dumpty levels of shattering”.

Well, before you think about doing anything rash, perhaps it worth looking back more than three years and, if you do, you’ll find that, so far, this is a run-of-the-mill correction as shown below, not an end-of-a-bull-market type of event that many financial writers would desperately like to believe.

[To see the graphic that goes along with this story, continue reading at Seeking Alpha.]

Well, you knew this wasn’t going to last forever and, as a few shrewd analysts have boldly proclaimed in recent days, it seems clear that the decade-long bull market in gold is now finally over.

A big price run-up to almost unthinkable new highs in a relatively short period of time and then panic selling when investors realize that there are no more buyers brings to a tidy conclusion another long-term bull market in the yellow metal here in 2011, just like in 1980.

It’s all clear to see in the graphic below.

[Continue reading this story at Seeking Alpha where there are a good number of responses from readers who can't easily recognize something that is written tongue-in-cheek.]

Newsletter writer Dennis Gartman  picked a good day to announce to the world that he was buying gold again, that is, the day before the price of the metal surged more than $50 an ounce. From Reuters comes this report that, in hindsight, makes him look like a genius.

Oct 24 – Independent investor Dennis Gartman says he is prepared to buy back the gold he sold when he cut his holdings in half last week, adding prices would certainly move upward.

“In light of the fact that gold is back to the levels that we sold last week, we thought it wise to be on guard and prepared to buy back that which we had sold,” Gartman said on Tuesday in his newsletter, the Gartman Letter.

On Oct 18, he cut his gold positions by half to take profits, citing bearish technical signals and prospects of margin call selling.
…
“Gold is a currency; it has been for years and it shall be for years going forward. A move upward through ?1,200 for gold today or tomorrow or this week or next shall be impressive and important,” he said in the newsletter.

Of course, you really don’t have to sell your gold and then go about trying to buy it back at a lower price in order to come out ahead at this game – and I mean, way ahead.

The metal has had an amazing run – up an average of 20 percent per year over the last ten years with the worst performance being a gain of about 6 percent in 2008 – and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change anytime soon given the financial problems that still plague Europe and the U.S.

But, you don’t sell many newsletter subscriptions just telling people to buy gold and hold it.

I’ve seen enough of these debates about gold and silver manipulation to expect two things:

1. Prepare to be disappointed as personal attacks and form triumph over substance
2. Nothing either party says will change what the other side so firmly believes

But, they can be fun to watch anyway. Here, Gold Anti Trust Action Committee Chairman Bill Murphy and CPM Group Director Jeff Christian cross swords at the Silver Summit in Spokane:

There is more on the debate in this Mineweb story along with these comments by Murphy and this collection of rebuttals by Christian to GATA’s manipulation claims.

As noted in the Mineweb story, the Financial Times recently giving GATA new credibility is significant, but attempting to make their case in a forum such as this against someone like Christian always seems to quickly degrade into faith-based arguments and name calling.