With the housing market not seeing the returns of the past few years, investors have been looking at alternatives for a while now. Wall Street is seeing _green_ with the DJIA moving close to a record high. However, some investors are seeing _gold_ [in the red-hot commodities market](http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-05-13T134023Z_01_N12191757_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-COLUMN-CANADA-MARKETS-COL.XML) or just [plain _gold_ [WaPo]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051300191.html), which acts both as a [safe-haven asset [theStreet.com]](http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/markets/commodities/10281739.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA) against geopolitical uncertainty and as an inflation hedge against rising energy prices.

_[Upbeat bulls are clearly in the majority on Wall Street right now [WaPo]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051300191.html), and truly negative bears are hard to find. But many stock traders and market analysts can identify reasons to be worried about the current state of affairs, and some are actively predicting at least a short downturn by the end of the year._

>Gold futures, often a haven for “gold bugs” — investors concerned about inflation and geopolitical or stock market turmoil — rose above $700 in New York this week for the first time since 1980. Silver is at a 25-year high, and copper and platinum both set records in the week, though copper pulled back a bit by week’s end.

Perhaps we will start seeing [Gold Bubble Blogs](http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2006/04/goldbugs-make-your-case-for-investing.html) fairly soon as the price continues to rise rapidly.