By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch.com

NEW YORK — Gold had a pretty rough week, but some gold bugs remain remarkably cheerful.

Last Friday’s down-$10.20 close at $1,052.80 in New York was the lowest since October 30th. Gold has now completely erased the spectacular November rally which carried it over $1,200.

True, gold and gold shares did participate enthusiastically in the peculiar late Friday afternoon rally which brightened the general stock scene. Nyse Arca Gold Bugs (HUI) and Phlx Gold Silver Index (XAU) in particular both rose over 5%, far outpacing the general market.

No one really knows whether to take this seriously — gold normally barely trades late on Fridays. The possibility of window dressing is obvious.

What next?

The chart damage done last week was horrible. Martin Pring noted in his Weekly InfoMovie Report that gold “has completed an upward sloping head and shoulders pattern and has just violated the major up trendline … that suggests to me … a more protracted correction.”

The Australian-based service The Privateer’s famous $US 5X3 point-and-figure chart — available here — turned down and now looks dreadful.

And JSMineset’s Dan Norcini came straight to the point about the gold shares on Thursday evening: “The HUI chart stinks — not much more can be said than that. It has to get back above 400 to generate the least bit of bullish enthusiasm.”

Of course last week was a pretty bloodcurdling week to own anything. The Gartman Letter’s explanation of why it was not evicted from its gold position, as it frequently is in waterfall declines, has a lot of resonance: “We hold what we hold out of fear of the future, not out of love for gold.”

Nevertheless, two types of gold bugs remain remarkably cheerful.

The truly hard-core financial system skeptics actually found last week delicious. They are exemplified by Australia’s The Privateer, which (despite its grim chart) happily noted:

“The Global Financial Crisis has come back, but this time, it is not the risk of banks going under — it is the risk of “sovereign nations” going under. Which sovereign nations? European ones, or more precisely peripheral European ones along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

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