The most powerful bull markets are invariably punctuated from beginning to end by wrenching spasms. Were it otherwise, we could all simply load up on bullion assets, quit our day jobs and go fishing as we watch our net wealth grow, day by day, along with soaring mining-share valuations. 

Would that it were so easy. More typical is that we will get on board at just the wrong time, as prices go into a steep corrective dive; we’ll take profits nowhere near the top, but rather in the midst of a horrific selloff; and we will retire at 70, not 50, like so many other erstwhile investment geniuses.

So why have I continually referred to the ongoing bull market in precious metals as the no-brainer investment of our lifetime? Simply because the power of this bull market seems unmistakable to me, just as the forces that are driving it appear to be many orders of magnitude greater than those that cause ordinary business cycles.

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But no matter how confident we might be about this, it cannot make us impervious to the pain we feel whenever gold and silver fall as sharply as they did last week. The June Comex contract collapsed $40 in a single day, shedding more than six percent of its value in mere hours. But even the most steadfast of bulls could not have predicted what happened next, when gold recouped fully two-thirds of the loss almost as quickly.

Get used to it, because this is the way all great bull markets act, rising relentlessly for weeks or even months without pause, then diving with such violence as to make even die-hards wonder whether they’ve made a disastrous mistake. Whether the price of an ounce of gold is on its way to $1,000, or to $2,000, to $5,000 or even $10,000, it is unlikely to provide any of us with an easy path to riches.