To buy or not buy gold is a question of doubt

Breaking all previous records, gold reached $1,256 an ounce last week. Thats a flight of almost 16 years, this year alone. In line with international prices, the 10-gram bar of the yellow metal steadily rose to Rs 34114 in the local market.
To a great extent, it is a typical show of the famous "run to commodities", as in a bid to safeguard their wealth against mounting uncertainties in the global economy, investors have found a safe haven in the yellow metal.
Evidence suggests that persistent fiscal turmoil in the Euro zone -and high-risk of a potential contagion - has been lifting the global appetite for relatively safe investment vehicles.
Gold holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded fund backed by the bullion, reached to record highs of 1,307 tons by the end of last week. Official figures suggest that investments in the fund have expanded by 16 percent.
Meanwhile, lingering fears over the stability of legal tender have compelled central bankers around the world to shift out of dollars and Euros to shining gold.
Data released by World Gold Council reveal that Russias central bank was the largest customer for gold this year; it increased its gold holdings by about 5 percent to 668 metric tons.
Others weren far behind, as Philippines, Kazakhstan and Venezuela also increased their reserve holding in gold.
Last year, China along with Russia and India, cumulatively accumulated around 771 tons of gold to increase its composition in total reserves. Despite liquidity issues in Europe, central banks in the continent sold virtually no gold in the past few months.
In keeping with the current market scenario, Goldman Sachs predicts that gold could climb to $1400 this year.
But here is the catch; gold has broken its usually strong inverse-correlation with the dollar, and now a confluence of other factors is affecting gold prices - making its direction unclear. Perhaps, thats why the famed gold analyst Brian Belski, Oppenheimer & Co.s argues that gold is way out of whack with commodity prices and headed for a fall.