There's no question, gold's bull market is heating up. It's flexing its muscles, and it's now in a more solid phase. Gold is rising on its own and not because of U.S. dollar weakness like before. Gold demand is up around the world, and mutual funds, institutions and possibly some central banks have also been moving into the market. Plus, the other metals have all joined in on the rise, too.

It's clearly a new ballgame. By all indications, the game has a lot further to go, and it's going to be a good one. Luckily, we were there early, but if you weren't, it's not too late.

Increasingly, the evidence continues to grow, signaling a new investment era that began a few years ago. This new era has been favoring gold over other investments like stocks and bonds, or even real estate. This year, for instance, gold was again the winner. So far, it has gained 23% compared to the gains in stocks, bonds and real estate at 4.85% (Standard & Poor's 500 index), 6.40% and 16%, respectively.

That's been the case for the past four to six years, and it's going to continue and intensify.

What's behind the move? This new era is being driven by mountains of debt and deficit spending; lots of liquidity and money from central banks around the world; inflation; a boom in oil; China's phenomenal growth and demand for just about everything; the war on terror and global instability, both geopolitically and financially due to the largest imbalances ever. Plus, demand is growing, and this is all coinciding with the 200-year commodity cycle.

These cycles have occurred about every 30 years, and each time commodities have risen for 15 to 40 years, with the average being about 18 years. These are mega secular bull market rises, and since the current rise is only five years old, we'll likely see another decade or so of rising metals prices before this mega upmove is over, based on the historical record.

We continue to recommend keeping a 50% position in gold, silver, streetTRACKS Gold Trust, iShares COMEX Gold Trust and the metals, energy and resource shares. The strongest metals shares that reached new highs are: Central Fund of Canada , Newmont Mining , Agnico-Eagle Mines , Glamis Gold , ASA (Bermuda), AngloGold Ashanti, Royal Gold, US Global Investors Fund World Precious Minerals, Scudder Gold & Precious Metals Fund, Tocqueville Gold, Pan American Silver, Goldcorp, Placer Dome and Eldorado Gold.

The others like Silver Standard Resources , Coeur d'Alene Mines, Compania de Minas Buenaventura and Apex Silver Mines rose and did well, but not as good as the others.