With gold hovering near a four-month low, even some of the yellow metal's most ardent fans have begun to sweat.
Just don't count Euro Pacific Capital's Peter Schiff among the Nervous Nellys.
The perpetual bullion bull and sworn enemy of central bankers everywhere told CNBC's "Futures Now" this past week that gold's recent sell-off is only temporary and that investors should be "patient enough to ride this thing out."
Gold, he said, is one of the few avenues available to investors as a store of value in a world where major central banks are determined to fight economic weakness with ultra-accommodative monetary policy.
"What are you going to do? You're going to hold dollars at zero percent with (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke promising to print until infinity?" the fierce Fed critic asked. "There's no currency that you can hold and be confident inits future purchasing power. But you can hold gold, you can hold silver."
Schiff added that people "could make a lot of money in gold and gold stocks if they are patient. But unfortunately there's money on Wall Street that's not patient, and I advise other people who understand the fundamentals" to stay put, he said.
Earlier in the week, noted gold bug Jim Rogers sounded a rare note of caution as gold suffered its deepest weekly loss since June.
Meanwhile, well-known investor John Paulson — whose flagship investment funds have had a brutal year – saw falling bullion take a toll on his gold fund, which has fallen 21 percent year to date. (Read more: John Paulson's Hedge Funds Weather Another Tough Month .)
Schiff said people originally invested with Paulson because he once had a "hot hand." Now, impatient investors are heading for the exits "because they don't understand the dynamics behind the market," he said.
