Some academics have suggested that gold follows a random walk. I have developed a little program that can be used to test this hypothesis. http://gold.yabz.com/rand.htm From testing out data from various time periods and in different ways (such as the difference in each days prices), I cannot see that the random walk hypothesis can be applied to gold prices (or silver prices). Instead there a clearly trends...which is good news for traders...
That's why they're academics...and not in trading or any other profession where their theories would have to produce a profit. Gold a random walk...no trends...no predictable effects from world events, central bankers, financial crises, etc.? Absurd just on prima facie grounds. No wonder it doesn't hold up to testing, either.
Who are the academics that are arguing gold follows random walk? Citation please? And papers where gold prices are used as a demonstration input of other concepts (ie, portfolio optimization) doesn't count because the point of those papers aren't that assets follow random walk;
These are 2 academic studies that claim that gold prices follow a random walk: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/201537052-95356590/content~db=all~content=a713760909~frm=abslink http://www.agsm.edu.au/eajm/9106/pdf/selvanathan.pdf