Freeport says Grasberg stake to fall to 29% – shares dumped

Gold is down nearly 30% for the year.

Quality will win out, says Levi Spry, senior resources analyst at GMP Securities Australia.

Not many well-wishers on the Fed's big day.

Once confined to Peru and Colombia, the shady business has spread out to neighbouring countries and is generating up to five times more revenue than drug trafficking.

The Fed-inspired drop in the gold price prompted investors to buy a net 5.4 tonnes on Friday, the first increase in holdings by the world's largest gold-backed ETF since November 5.

Hedge fund manager Jon Richard Carnes wrote a false negative report in 2011 about the silver miner in order to profit from its falling share price.

It plunged as much as 3% to $1,198 an ounce, the lowest price in almost six months.

The US Federal Reserve surprised the market and announced it's throttling its quantitative easing program that has pumped $4 trillion of easy money into the US economy.

Confidence levels in the sector have improved dramatically over the last 12 months, reaching a two-year high.