The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that gold bugs should be having a moment: Inflation is high, stock markets are down, recession is looming -- and there is war in Europe. The Post's Gabriel Friedman writes that despite the gloom, the price of gold, along with equities of gold miners, are in free fall Last week, gold fell 3 per cent to $1,665 per ounce after the release of data that showed that U.S. inflation hit 8.3 per cent in August, the opposite of what you would have expected. Gold has now sunk 20 per cent since hitting $2,087 per ounce in March. A bearish mood seems to have infected the sector, with even the largest gold producers looking to diversify. Barrick Gold chief executive officer Mark Bristow has acknowledged that at one point several years ago he engaged in unsuccessful merger discussions with U.S.-headquartered copper goliath Freeport-McMoran. "Copper is probably the most strategic metal, and it's geologically related to gold," Mr. Bristow said. "So if you want to become a world-leading gold company in the fullness of time, you are going to end up producing." If gold prices continue to slide, other gold miners may also look to make copper, zinc and other metals part of their portfolio.