The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is reportedly looking to probe Monday’s dramatic fall in the gold price after Commissioner Bart Chilton told Bloomberg that the drop in gold and silver raised “concerns”. Preliminary investigations show that volumes in both gold and silver were at their 2nd highest levels in 30 years.

Given the plethora of explanations for gold’s two-day mega retreat early in the week, the chart above  gives a nice simple explanation, one that was signalled way in advance. Gold-backed ETF outflows really took off in February and accelerated from there, so despite the most ardent supporters, there was no way gold could hold up in the face of this wall of selling.