In fact, describing the move in gold as a sell-off is an understatement because the 8% decline is the largest single day loss for the commodity in 3 decades. Unfortunately, as time progressed, patience began to wear thin and investors were seeing their investment values dwindle with no hope of rapidly rising inflationary pressures in sight. Between this morning's (Monday) softer U.S. economic reports, last night's weaker Chinese data and this month's disappointing U.S. retail sales and jobs numbers, there are definite signs that the global recovery is losing momentum.