The bull camp can't be happy with the action on Friday as the market seemed to have some capacity to strength early in the session but instead the trade clearly favored the bearish tilt. In fact, despite a weaker US Dollar and morning strength in oil prices, the bear camp carved out definitive control and in the process managed to hold gold down at some of the lowest levels of the last 6 trading sessions. In addition to a lack of interest in the flight to quality theme from the financial sector, it is also possible that less political strife between the US and Iran also served to knock some gold longs from the market on Friday. Recently the market might have moved to factor in some weekend volatility off the Iranian situation but for the time being that element might be simply discounted.