What would you say if I told you that gold is up on the year?  Yes that's right, despite all the doom & gloom surrounding gold and the seemingly incessant bearish media coverage the yellow metal is actually up on the year - gold ended 2013 at $1204.80/oz and is now trading a little more than 1% above that level. That's for gold priced in US dollar terms, however, when we look at gold priced in some of the other major global currencies the picture looks a lot better for the yellow metal:

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Gold_in_Euros

 In euro terms gold is up more than 13% during 2014

Gold_Japanese_Yen

In yen terms gold is up 14.5% during 2014

Gold_Russian_Ruble

In Russian ruble terms gold is up 60% during 2014!!

Chart source: YCharts.com

The stealth rally in gold during 2014 is possibly the most important yet least covered theme of the year. The reason is that gold futures contracts change hands in US dollar terms which places the primary focus on the US dollar price of gold. However, given that gold is a global currency alternative and safe haven asset (store of value) the price of gold in other major currencies is just as important as the US dollar price.

2014 is definitely the year of the stealth rally in gold. The only question left remaining in 2014 is will it be the year that the USD price of gold bottomed? We will have to wait until 2015 to find out the answer to that question...