The bottom line is gold’s young new bull market was driven by massive investment buying. Nearly all of that came from stock investors flooding into gold-ETF shares, led by the dominant American GLD. And investors’ migration back into gold remains far from over. Heavy GLD buying continued in May despite gold’s high consolidation of recent months. Investors still remain radically under-deployed in gold even today.

The American stock investors scrambling to diversify their stock-dominated portfolios with gold via GLD shares ahead of the coming bear have barely started. They have vast buying left to do merely to return their portfolio gold exposure to pre-QE3 normal-year levels. Thus the massive gold investment buying has only begun. It will likely take years to complete, driving gold’s new bull higher on balance the entire time.