By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
It has been an unsettling experience for late-comers who joined the gold rush near all-time highs of $1,923 an ounce last September. The slide has become deeply threatening since the US Federal Reserve took quantitative easing (QE3) off the table six weeks ago — or appeared to do so — and signalled the start of a new tightening cycle. Spot gold ended the pre-Easter week at $1,636.