Ummm...excuse me?....If you want to look for someone who manipulates the price of gold...you need look no further than the Fed's...On the last run up they dumped tons of physical through back channels and made available more physical to short with...All the while the Japanese where buying contracts like they were going out of style and letting them mature to delivery...pissing off the Feds even more
These two might be up to shenanigans but compared to the world market..relatively inconsequential...
As to derivitives...they are king....You would need a 2 Ton truck to capture any reasonable profit on a gold move...with contracts you can leverage your position a hundred fold and you don't need to dig a basement vault.. When I participate in gold it is through Contracts...and I have been long for 2.5 years now...I think we will see 450 at some point in the not to distant future...