Gold mining executives are keeping their fingers crossed that their hectic restructuring, writedowns and impairments will before long turn out to be appropriate preparation for a new upturn in the gold price. But dampening the good-luck wish that crossed fingers are meant to symbolise is price unpredictability more akin to the unruly Goldfinger movie. There have been so many wrong gold price projections that many gold mining CEOs are no longer prepared to give a view on gold’s future price direction. Instead, they are keeping their heads down and feverishly dealing with the factors that they are able to control, like cutting unprofitable ounces out of the portfolio and taking the price as it comes. That is the big drawback of being in gold and having to live with the reality of being a price taker, and not a price maker.