After breaking above $1,300 earlier this week to hit 15-month highs, gold has seen a bout of profit taking ahead of Fridays widely watched nonfarm-payrolls report from the U.S. Labor Department.

The metal was trading near $1,280 Wednesday afternoon, up from session lows of $1,270 but held in check by a rebound in the U.S. dollar. Despite the dip, gold still has gained about 20% on the year. Silver was down but maintaining the $17 level, trading near $17.32.

Hawkish statements from top Federal Reserve officials, mainly President Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta Fed, helped boost the buck and take some steam out of golds ascent. Lockhart said an interest-rate increase remains a real option at the central banks June meeting.

Helicopter cash coming, Gross says: Of course, investors should take such statements with a grain of salt because the Fed has a vested interest in pretending that its policies are working instead of failing to goose U.S. growth. Some top Wall Street figures dont see a rate hike coming, including bond guru Bill Gross of Janus, who went so far as to predict more quantitative easing via so-called helicopter money to stimulate the economy.

Drop the money from helicopters, wrote Gross. There is a rude end to flying helicopters, but the alternative is an immediate visit to austerity rehab and an extended recession. I suspect politicians and central bankers will choose to fly, instead of die. Gross predicted more QE perhaps even in the U.S. in a year or so.

Private-payrolls report tanks: Given the slew of disappointing economic data this week, Gross might be correct. Although the trade deficit shrank and the PMI services-sector gauge rebounded, the Automatic Data Processings tally of private-sector job creation fell short Wednesday, with only 156,000 positions materializing versus 195,000 expected the worst tally in three years. And while durable-goods orders rose in March, gains were largely driven by defense spending; year-over-year core durable-goods orders actually fell for the 14^th month to their lowest level since 2013. Meanwhile, U.S. productivity continues to slump.

Fridays jobs report will be key to gauging the health of the jobs market and therefore the likelihood of fresh rate hiking from the Fed. The payrolls report also will be important for gold prices. A weaker U.S. employment report on Friday will push gold prices back above $1,300, ABN Amro analyst Georgette Boele told Reuters. Speculative positions are in excessive territory, but they could remain there for quite some time, meaning prices could go lot higher before the correction starts.

$1,200 support key to golds run higher: And even if a deeper correction strikes, as long as $1,200 holds, gold could be poised to move higher. Assuming a correction/pullback from the $1,300-1,307 resistance area over the coming session holds above the $1,200 area, we will have further evidence of a more significant reversal taking shape in gold, CLSA technical analysts wrote. Such a move would form the right shoulder of a more than a two-year basing pattern (inverse head-and-shoulders base) which would ultimately support an upside target of $1,600-1,610.

Another bullish sign for gold is open interest. Open interest, a tally of outstanding contracts in Comex futures, rose to the highest in five years on Monday, showing traders are expecting further increases, Bloomberg reported.

Theres a lot more interest in gold and were seeing a lot of people looking to enter gold, RJO Futures strategist Bob Haberkorn said. Were seeing a lot of new buying coming in. Overall, the sentiment toward gold is extremely bullish.

Miners struggling to meet demand: And longer-term, supply-and-demand constraints continue to support gold. Top South African miner Randgold expects bullion to stay supported between $1,000 and $1,400 this year, with CEO Mark Bristow remarking, Fundamentally our industry is struggling to deliver the gold thats being demanded.

Citing the spread of negative interest rates around the world, Saxo Bank economist Kay Van-Petersen is even more bullish, predicting the metal will hit $1,500 in the next six to 18 months. No one knows how this ends, he said. But one thing is for sure now, its a game of capital preservation. There is no holy grail, but from a macro-perspective, I think you have to look at precious metals.

With Republican presidential contender Donald Trumps decisive win in the Indiana primary solidifying his grip on his partys nomination, China addressed the implications of the billionaires victory through its state-controlled media. Meanwhile, it continues to take steps to corner the market on precious metals in its bid to elevate its yuan currency as a serious rival to the U.S. dollar.

Though a White House win by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton likely would maintain the status quo of Sino-U.S. relations, Chinas Global Times noted that Trump represents a more uncertain outcome. If Trump really captures the White House, what will it mean? This scenario is becoming increasingly serious, it wrote.

A Trump-led U.S. might be inclined to isolationism and attach more importance to America First, and American economy, it added. After enjoying massive trade surplus from the U.S. for years, China and Japan will be demanded by Washington to widen market access.

China with strength awaits president: The newspapers solution for China? Improving strength is the most reliable way to respond to the U.S. uncertainties. We believe that no matter whether Trump or Clinton prevails, they will see a China with strength from different perspectives.

And that show of strength is on display right now, with China planning military drills in the South China Sea as it exercises control over the disputed Spratly archipelago. The maneuvers will involve advanced warships and submarines, including a guided-missile destroyer. Allied closely with the Philippines and other nations with a stake in the area, the U.S. Navy has put on numerous displays of force in the disputed waters in the past year in attempting to limit Chinas moves.

Gold-import rules streamlined: China also is keeping its eyes on the precious-metals sphere, where it continues to mine, amass, import, and trade massive quantities of bullion. And importing it just got a whole lot easier, with Bloomberg reporting that Chinas central bank has relaxed rules to speed up acquisition of the metal.

The central bank and customs will allow companies that have frequent imports and exports of gold and gold products to apply for a single permit that can be used in as many as 12 shipments, Bloomberg noted. The trial to simplify the rules takes effect June 1 and applies to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Nanjing and Shenzhen.

The move will reduce paperwork and speed up gold imports because previously importers had to apply for an overall import quota from the central bank and then report and register every single shipment, said Jiang Shu of Shandong Gold Financial Holdings Capital Management Co.

Shanghai bourse stockpiling silver: Moreover, China is devoting efforts to increasing its control over the global silver trade. Steve St. Angelo of the SRSrocco Report says a key Shanghai exchange is on course to amass more silver than JPMorgan has on the Comex.

JPMorgans total silver inventories have declined from 69.4 Moz (million ounces) to 67.2 Moz, while the Shanghai Futures Exchange silver stocks have increased from 54.7 Moz to 60.6 Moz, St. Angelo noted. If the Shanghai Futures Exchange continues to add silver at this rate, it will surpass JPMorgan in a two to three weeks. The Chinese are adding a lot of silver to their Shanghai Futures Exchange warehouses. The build from 7.5 Moz in August 2015 to over 60 Moz of silver in the beginning of May puts JP Morgans four-year inventory growth to shame.

Time is running out fast for London hub: In other words, China is opening up the floodgates even further to accumulate huge quantities of precious metals while also tightening its grip on market pricing mechanisms (witness the recent launch of its yuan-denominated price fix). The goal: to make its currency as good as gold.

Not many in the West are paying attention to these developments, but some are, especially in London, the current world epicenter of the gold trade. One gold dealer there told the Platts news service that someone needs to step in and help rejuvenate Londons importance as a global gold hub. I think it should be the best [London as a global hub for gold trade] and still could be, but time is running out fast, he said.

Some would argue that time also is running out on the U.S. dollars dominance as a global reserve currency. It remains to be seen who will best maintain that primacy, Trump or Clinton (or someone else). But regardless of who wins the presidency, rest assured that China is getting prepared.

One of the jewels of Americas earliest coinage recently made a strong run toward the $1 million mark, while another 18^th-century rare coin brought in almost three-quarters of a million dollars.

A 1792 silver disme pattern, certified at AU50 by NGC and one of only three known pieces classified as Judd 9, commanded $998,750. The other two silver dismes most recently sold for $458,250 (XF Details NGC) and $329,000 (Fine 15 NGC), respectively.

The name Judd refers to famed numismatic scholar and collector J. Hewitt Judd, author of United States Pattern Coins, Experimental & Trial Pieces. In addition to having once been owned by Judd himself, this coin was more recently part of the Donald Groves Partrick Collection. The $998,750 price matched that of the record amount the coin got when sold in early 2015.

Another 1792 coin, a copper disme pattern with reeded edge, garnered $705,000. Classified as a Judd 10 and certified as Specimen 64 brown by PCGS, it is one of only 18 reeded-edge 1792 copper dismes known to exist.

These dismes came into being as a result of President George Washington authorization of Mint Director David Rittenhouses July 1792 request to create half cents, cents, half dismes, and dismes, engraved by Robert Birch and perhaps others. Numismatic legend has it that the silver used for these coins came from Washington himself.

Look for some more potentially eye-popping sales numbers to be announced in the coming weeks in what is shaping up to be another big year for rare coins, which have been bolstered by ongoing easy-money monetary policies and the headline-grabbing runup in gold and silver bullion prices.

Gold continued its breathtaking advance Monday by topping $1,300 for the first time since January 2015, feeding off a trifecta of bullish drivers from last week: inaction from both the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, as well as a mediocre U.S. GDP report.

The yellow metal peaked at $1,303.60 before reversing slightly on profit taking. Meanwhile, silver one of the top-performing assets of April eased somewhat near $17.50. Gold gained more than 4% in April, while silver racked up a 15% advance for the month.

Just the start of a push higher for gold?: Dollar weakness, enabled by the Feds refusal to raise interest rates last week as well as similar paralysis from the Bank of Japan, has been the key driver for gold. We believe that theres a lot of things that are ripe for precious metals right now: a low-interest-rate environment, interest-rate expectations backing down again, and we have a weaker dollar, EverBank World Markets President Chris Gaffney told Bloomberg. We believe this is just the start of a push higher for the precious metals.

The dollar was the reason behind the spike up (last week), and we broke all the important levels on the upside, MKS trader Afshin Nabavi told Reuters. $1,285 was a huge number, and we got through $1,290 pretty easily. $1,300 is going to be a very important one. I think were heading for new numbers on the upside.

$1,325 is really the next resistance level, Trading Advantage strategist Todd Bauer added. Theres a lot of dead air between $1,325 and $1,400.

Gold has a nice tailwind at the moment with the dollar weak and equity markets teetering to the downside, Altavest co-founder Michael Armbruster told MarketWatch. I wouldnt be surprised to see gold near $1,400 in the next month.

Gold partying like its 2007 again: With gold having advanced 22% for the year with its run above $1,300, CNBC recalled similarities between now and 2007. Going back to 1980, there has been only year in which gold has outperformed the S&P by 20% or more while the latter was positive on the year: 2007, it reported. Both gold and the fear-measuring CBOE Volatility Index surged in the second half of that year, even as stocks maintained their footing. The [stock] crash, of course, came in 2008.

A weak PCE inflation report Friday and another contracting PMI manufacturing number continue to suggest an anemic U.S. economy. The chances of a rate hike at any point this year are fast disappearing, for both economic and political reasons, according to American College of Financial Services CEP Robert R. Johnson.

The Fed meeting calendar is going to make it exceedingly difficult for the Fed to move on rates the rest of this year, he wrote. The Fed has five more meetings scheduled in June, July, September, November, and December. There is virtually no chance of rate increases in June and November. The June meeting is eight days prior to the Brexit referendum in the UK and the November meeting is a week before the U.S. presidential election. Moves prior to those political events are highly unlikely, as the Fed doesnt want to be accused of influencing key votes. That leaves July, September, and December for possible rate hikes. I would even take September off the table because of the proximity to the presidential election.

Survey projects higher prices: Even before golds runup to $1,300, analysts already were revising their forecasts. A survey of 30 gold experts at banks and trading firms returned an average 2016 gold price forecast of $1,209 an ounce, up from $1,118 in a similar poll in January, Reuters reported. The price is expected to rise steadily this year, peaking at an average $1,250 an ounce in the fourth quarter, the survey showed, before extending gains to average $1,300 an ounce in 2017. That would be its highest annual average since 2013. At the rate gold is moving, these projections already look like underestimations.

This weeks major data point will be the Labor Departments nonfarm-payrolls report for April. With one of the Feds mandates being lowering the unemployment rate, the report could shed more light on second-quarter growth and influence the Feds decision process on interest rates.

Just about a week after its April 19 article titled Silvers bull market has so much more to give, 5 charts show, Bloomberg has zeroed in on another bullish driver for the white metal: supply and demand.

Output from mines will fall for the first time since 2011, while demand for the metal inuses including industrial products and jewelry is heading for a fourth straight gain, the news agency reported in its April 26 article Silver supply trouble shows why rally momentum is building.

Bloomberg was reporting the latest findings of the CPM Group in its Silver Yearbook 2016, which is projecting that newly mined silver production will fall 2.4% this year, while scrap supply will decline 1%. In contrast, industrial and fabrication demand is expected to rise by 1.6%. CPMs decline forecast follows an earlier call this year by Societe Generale.

Therefore, silver is entering what is likely to be a pivotal year, CPM said. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Christian, recently told Forbes contributor Simon Constable that he sees silver trading over $20 and as high as $25 in a few years.

Thanks to surging ETF inflows, net-long futures positioning, and strong coin sales, silver recently broke the $17 level and gained about 15% alone in April.

The most accurate silver forecasters ranked by Bloomberg are both bullish on the metal Cantor Fitzgeralds Rob Chang (ranked No. 1) and Intesa Sanpaolo SpAs Daniela Corsini (No. 2) with Chang saying, We believe there is more upside.

What was resistance becomes support, agreed TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon in a CNBC appearance last week. We are free from the ceiling and ready to move higher.

Some major investment banks also are raising their price targets for so-called poor mans gold. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has lifted its 2016 average price by 8% to $16.47, citing shrinking supplies and rising demand, particularly in the coin, bar, and ETF sectors. It also increased its long-term forecast to $19.71 from $18.56.

Our analysis shows that fundamentals are now the strongest in years, BofA Merrill analysts said. In our view, a sustained bear market is only possible if we see investor demand take another leg lower, not our base case.

And Deutsche Bank went even further, predicting that silver could reach $20.50 in the near term thanks to ongoing easy-money policies from major central banks like the Fed and the ECB. Its also expecting improving industrial demand to drive the price higher, and for already record-level net-long positions on the Comex to increase even further.

Silver can remain dormant and underperform gold for significant periods before suddenly catching up; it tends to be a late-cycle play in the precious metals space. When this happens, it tends to happen quickly as has been the case this week, it said.

Silver coins remain one of the best ways to invest in the metals rising price. The U.S. Mint has sold 18.889 million ounces of its flagship silver American Eagle bullion coin, well on pace to break the 2015 all-time annual sales record of 37 million. Investors also should consider silver Canadian Maple Leaf coins, silver rounds, circulated Morgan Dollars and Peace Dollars, and silver bullion bars (10 oz. and 100 oz.). A green Monster Box of 500 silver Eagles also is a great way to go!