As a long term investment, gold will always lose out against others. But treat it like a currency, then you can trade like you would any FOREX deal. Gold used to predictable and you could anticipate the falls and rises quite easily. These days, hedge funds use it as a buffer and there's no doubt that the gold price is being manipulated and consequently much less easy to predict. It's far more of a gamble.
However, it's still possible to make money and there will be a lot of people who made a stack on yesterday's $30 rise. :-)