Going forward, gold prices will largely be affected by U.S. monetary policy. The Federal Reserve began its interest rate-normalization process with a small but significant 0.25 percent increase, and unless the Fed has reason to mark time or reverse course in 2016, rates should continue to rise steadily.

This will bump up not just the U.S. dollar—which historically shares an inverse relationship with gold, since it’s priced in dollars—but also real interest rates. As I’ve discussed many times before, real rates have a huge effect on the yellow metal.