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February gold futures broke $1200 for the first time a little after 4AM New York time. February 2010 is now the major front month contract after the expiration of the December contract on November 30th. Gold futures were up 14% in November, the best monthly performance in ten years. Silver was also up 14%. Gold traded down only three days in November and hit one all-time high after another during that time. While the major U.S. stock indices were also up, gold and silver shined in comparison. Seasonally-weak oil was flat during the month. The trade-weighted U.S. dollar opened November above 76 and closed out below 75, hitting a new yearly low of 74.23 in the interim. The price rise in gold is caused by a positive supply demand picture both for the physical metal and in the futures trading pits. For the last twenty years there have been three major sources of gold supply and three major destinations of gold demand. The sources for supply have been mining, scrap (also known as recycled gold) and central bank selling. The three majors uses for gold have been for jewelery, investment and industrial (contrary to popular belief, gold has a wide variety of uses in manufacturing, especially in electronics). Complicating the picture has been central bank leasing to miners, big banks and hedge funds that dumped significant amounts of gold on the market in the 1980s and 1990s and was a major factor in holding gold prices down. The unwinding of these positions, Barrick Gold closing out its hedge book is the most recent example, has been creating upward pressure on gold prices for several years now. There are two major currents in the shift in market supply and demand. Central banks have shifted from the supply side to the demand side and ETFs have caused a major increase in investment demand. Up to mid-decade, central bank selling accounted for 14% of gold market supply, but in the first half of 2009, central banks became net buyers of gold. As supply dried up from central banks a new increase in demand was created by ETFs that buy and store physical gold. There are now eleven of