The gold price has fallen to a near six-year low. It is trading at US$1,055 an ounce.
Gold has fallen 11 percent in value in a year and is down more than 22 percent over five years.
NOT SO BAD FOR NZ INVESTORS
The situation is a little different for anyone buying gold with New Zealand dollars.
The Kiwi has been falling in value as well.
So if you bought gold a year ago in New Zealand dollars you will find your investment has actually risen 7.3 percent to NZ$1617.
CHINA STOCKS FALL
Gold is supposed to be a safe haven investment in times of uncertainty. But the commodity has been falling despite continued uncertainty about growth in China, Europe and a number of emerging market economies.
China's sharemarket fell 5.5 percent on Friday.
The selloff in China occurred on the back of data showing poor industrial profits. The Chinese regulators also announced a it was cracking down on how broking firms finance their clients' stock purchases.
But US investors appeared to shrug it off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P500 were almost flat for the day (and for the week).
That might be partly due to a shortened trading day in the US, after the Thanksgiving holiday. So there was not a high volume of trading.
The focus was on the US discount shopping spree known as Black Friday.
There appeared to be fewer people in the shops than a year ago.
ShopperTrak estimates that US$12.1 billion was spent on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. $10b of that was spent on Black Friday.
ADELE BREAKS RECORDS
Perhaps people stayed home and listened to Adele?
Her first week's album sales for "25" have turned out to be even stronger than expected.
Nielsen Music says the album sold 3.38 million physical and digital copies in the US in its first week.
She easily smashed the Nielsen sales record set by NSYNC's "No Strings Attached" (2.416 million).
What makes the numbers particularly impressive is that albums sales have slowed markedly in recent years as people have embraced streaming.
Adele is keeping the full album off the streaming sites, at least for now.
THE NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR
The New Zealand dollar starts the week at 65.33 US cents.
It is sitting at 90.80 Australian cents, 43.47 British pence, 80.19 Japanese Yen and 61.71 Euro cents.
