Gold: the "box of ziti" level

Uh oh. Gold's near $1,000

Excerpt:

The price of gold is nearing $1,000 an ounce. It closed at $997.70 Thursday, up $19.20 from Wednesday. This rise might be a cause for concern.

In the past two years, gold has flirted with the "box of ziti" level -- a bit of slang for $1,000 from a memorable "Sopranos" episode -- a couple of times. And that usually has coincided with a time of immense strain in the markets

Gold hit a record high of about $1,014 in March 2008, just when Bear Stearns was on the verge of collapse before being "rescued" by the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase

A couple of months later, gold got close to $1000 again due to worries about inflation and a weak dollar. Gold's rise matched oil's march to a record high.

Finally, gold got close to $1000 again in late February of this year, a time when investors were fretting that big banks such as Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) might need to be nationalized.

Comment: Never heard the phrase "the "box of ziti" level" before!