Gold jumped at the weekly open due to uncertainty around the Iran war but that quickly gave way to profit taking and it sagged down to $5300. Then a second and third wave of bids arrived in Europe and the US leading to a session high of $5419 before selling into the US close and a drop to $5260.In Asian trading today, bids returned but in the past few minutes, that's been met by aggressive sellers. Like everyone, the gold market is trying to figure out where the Iran war leads. For US adversaries, there is already one lesson: it's not safe to be a leader. We saw strong bids in gold after the capture of Venezuela's Maduro and the post-war price action mirrors that. At the same time, here are macro effects in play with higher oil prices potentially leading to inflation. That has boosted Treasury yields in a move that's been attracting USD bids.In truth, no one knows how it will play out in Iran in both the long and short term. It's more chaotic at the moment but there's such a wide range of plausible outcomes that reflect what we've seen in American wars before: Iraq, Venezuela, Libya, Afghanistan. If Iran descends into chaos it's not necessarily bad for regional stability so there's a scenario where it's 'so bad that it's good' which isn't really positive for gold.There are also scenarios where the US gets dragged (now or later) into another endless and costly war.On the margin, war always creates tail risks and those are generally gold positive so I lean in that direction. I'd expect high volatility to continue. Gold was last up $13 to $5340 and silver is back negative at $88.40 after touching a high of $91.33 and hour ago. This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.