Early Tuesday, gold prices hit a new nominal high of $1,917/oz. only two weeks after rising above $1,800 for the first time.
Gold was at $1,400/oz. at the start of the year.
Although the levels themselves don't seem to be too much of a worry, some analysts are concerned about how quickly gold is rising.
"Gold is considered a good hedge against inflation," economics professor Lloyd Thomas from Kansas State University told CNN, "but the increase in gold price has far outpaced inflation, especially during the last decade."
Thomas said that unless higher inflation, around 10% a year, was forthcoming, gold prices are "clearly in a bubble."
"Bubbles can run a long time -- just look at technology stocks in the late 1990s and housing prices a few years ago," Thomas said. He believes that gold prices will likely soon threaten their inflation-adjusted high around $2,200 an ounce -- another warning bell of things getting a little too frothy, he said.
Others are more concerned about the short term. "Gold could keep working its way higher, but it is starting to look a bit bubbly," Matt Zeman from Kingsview Financial in Chicago told CNN. "The run-up reminds me of what silver did a few months ago. It climbed steadily week after week, sucked everyone in, and then the whole deck of cards came crashing down."
We ran a screen on the most highly shorted gold stocks. Short-sellers think these stocks are set for a pullback, do you agree?
Use this list as a starting-off point for your own analysis. (Click here to access free, interactive tools to analyze these ideas.)
1. Northgate Minerals
2. Royal Gold
3. Randgold Resources
4. Eldorado Gold
5. Compania de Minas Buenaventura
6. IAMGOLD
7. AuRico Gold Ordinary Share
8. Newmont Mining
9. Extorre Gold Mines Ltd. Ordinar
10. Harmony Gold Mining
Interactive Chart: Press Play to compare changes in analyst ratings over the last two years for the stocks mentioned above. Analyst ratings sourced from Zacks Investment Research.
Kapitall's Alexander Crawford does not own any of the shares mentioned above. Short data sourced from Yahoo! Finance, all other data sourced from Finviz.