Gold may have reached its limit as an alternative investment. The precious commodity reached the four figure mark this month, setting a new high. However, for all the fear of stocks and bonds that are driving investors into managed futures, there are still limits on how much investors can invest in gold. This has resulted in a pull back in gold prices, though it is still hovering at $1000 an ounce. For comparison, it was $840 an ounce a year ago.

After all, investors have already seen an Internet Bubble, Housing Bubble and now a Credit Bubble within the last decade. Thus the rush to precious metal commodities as an alternative investment has now slowed as buyers have evaluated trading system rankings and sought to avoid a new bubble. Thus gold dropped about 1% in the past two weeks, though it is still up 7% for the year.

This sanity check and correction is not limited to gold, which recently hit an 11 month high. Silver prices, too, have dropped some. Silver prices ran up 28% in the past year, and have now dropped 4% in the past two weeks.

Precious metals may have stabilized for the time being. However, they may spike again if federal and international banking actions continue to cause investor worries. Precious metal alternative investments will also see renewed activity if there are signs of inflation caused by the recent trillion dollar bailout.