Well, Risto said almost 1 year ago when Monero was launched that Monero trading will take place in his opinion between 0.002-0.004.
When this was said, the emission was almost 50 % higher than currently.
Monero peaked around midsummer feast at 5 usd - and this happened almost a year ago when nothing has been done almost to the code base. If it was possible then, why not today?
After all, I am now on the water for long long long time. My average buying price is somewhere around 0.003-0.0035. And when I bought most of my Moneros bitcoin was trading between 400-685 usd.
I think many were buying along me so there is not that much sellers at current prices. Also I doubt if long term bagholders like me and the others are selling at 10-30 % profit. I assume we are expecting much more if we ever want to sell even. Much better if there will be useful stuff to buy directly with XMR - and prefertably from Monero-friendly people who do not dump immediately after receiving the payment.
In my opinion, the fair price for Monero is now where the darkcoin is (around 0.02). Given the development and lowering block reward, the community etc.

The problem is Monero was low for so long time, so I hear still the echo of bearish talks here.
I will repeat what I said before.
Monero is able to handle 30 % pumps without severe dumps currently. The reason: price is still very low (it doesn't matter for serious buyer if he pays 1 usd or 1.5 usd if he is anticipating 2000+ usd price - I guess he is willing even to accumulate for 10 usd and some at 100 usd).

The bull trend was very good... For a while it looked like the trend lost some steam when xhalox dumped at 0.003, but this 30 % run was a gift and very warmly welcomed after that dump.

I think the price will not rise so fast after 0.01 since it is an area of very little trading (but until that it can rise fast without creating bubble or ending up badly) and therefore there will be resistance. Until that there is surprisingly little resistance.

I don't think it is optimistic to think that Monero could hit 10 usd this year regardless if btc price.
It is realistic view in my opinion, and I never said it will happen but it is realistic to happen.
Even now if XMR cost 10 usd per coin it means the daily mining output costs 160 000 usd which is not impossible to eat (with today's reward rate - not to mention with the reward of the end of the year). Correct me if I am wrong but LTC was able to eat even larger emission than that.
That being said, most likely 10 usd will not be hit this run. Perhaps 5 usd is realistic peak with the current pump.

I am not sure if this is a specualtion thread. I am sorry if I wrote on the wrong thread...

I see 10 usd Monero price being realistic by the end of this year - regardless of btc price.
However, I am not saying it will happen but it definetely is possible.
The block reward is declining so fast that we can easily absorb the mining at current rate - currently it is 16 000 usd per day (only).
After all, there are not that many sellers - and why one should even sell... If you believe Monero is the next bitcoin, then you do not sell it even at 100 usd.
Animals get slaughtered in the marketplace.

I am neither a tech savy and I am not sure if I have better intuition than people in general. I invested into XMR because Risto invested. I guess I try to follow people with money and intuition. 
I have lurked Risto's business since late 2007 when he did not have a castle but home based business and some kind of used car rental company.

He is most likely a supporter of XMR but he has way too weak and shaky hands. It is better to buy his coins now than later when the price is higher.
Monero needs super-strong hands who are not dumping coins, in my opinion.

By the way, dumping a coin is the stupidest thing to do IMO. Argument is simple: if you dump 10 000 coins, you get, let's say 29 btc. On the other hand, if you put 500 coins sell walls 20 times slowly slowly (like you feed a baby) to the markets, you will get - let's say 30.5 BTC. So this case you lose 1.5 btc and that's the cost of dumping. If you feel like selling, don't dump but put some sell orders to the markets instead. You get more money and you are not destroying nice charts.

I recommend to do the same with the coins I do (I do it because I think it is good for the coin).
Buy coins from exchange and withdraw them outside of the exchange.
Also some bitcoins are handy to keep in the exchange in case zhalox decides to dump some more Moneros.

Forget the coins for few years and let's see what is the market in 2018-2020... I think it is higher than today (or Monero has died). 

He is the last weak hand in Monero....

The one guy is dumping there - the guy called xhalox or something....?
He is the guy who put sell wall which Warz bought at one shot and put a buy wall instead few days ago.
Don't worry, if he is selling he is simply trying to manipulate the price down. It is important to teach him lesson so that he stops playing.
He is the kind of guy that needs perhaps more than 1 lesson.
Dumping has to be made expensive IMO.

Monero needs services that are hoovering coins from the markets.
First it is cool to have fiat-xmr-fiat exchange.
Second, services (like btcjam) - people borrow money in xmr and perhaps convert it to fiat and when they repay, they convert the principal ammortization + interest payment from fiat into xmr thus increasing the demand for Monero the sum of interest payment.
Then, all kind of digital stuff, ebay-style auction site that collects comissions in xmr and holds them etc.
Personally I think auction website for Monero would be cool.

They may not make the owners rich but definetely there are some small rivers that make the ocean.  

I have currently no plans to even touch that coin despite it is probably easy to pump.
For Monero it is good that the rest of anon coins have lower marketcap since it brings Monero to the spotlight of anon coins in the eyes of anon virgins.

I think Monero is absorbing slowly slowly Darkcoin community.
We might soon see how the Darkcoin people have joined us.
The war thread perhaps was a good eye opener for many Darkcoin believer, it might have caused some Darkcoin community members to repent and come home to papa.  

I think Monero has its own merits why it is rising.

Yes, everything is speculation except the reality.
I do not believe the price will grow the same rate neither.
That being said, I do not believe the growth rate will drop significiantly just yet.
The larger drops in growth rates enters when the price goes to some serous numbers (such as 10+ usd).
On the other hand, this is speculation which means it can be too optimistic but also too pessimistic.
The future will show. There might be some venture capitilists interested in Monero tech, too.

So you are basically predicting a significiant drop in the price growth rate?
Currently the situation is, it is building up a nice support at 0.003. It did it in a few months from 0.001 support levels.
To build up a support to 0.005 requires ~ 70 % rise from the current support line and the time zone you are predicting is 3 months..
I would say 0.005 is pretty realistic support line on Monero's first anniversary (or close to this date) and 0.01 can be a support line on 30.06.2015.

Actually given the increase in awarness even higher support level is possible on 30.06.2015. The price growth attracts new people who are competing the scarcer and scarcer coins.

When it comes to speculation, when do you estimate we will have strong support over 0.005?

Obviously it is not nice to have competition, therefore I had to warn others. LOL  
People who are fear mongering most likely has their own best interest. They want to buy it low.
Same thing applies to bitcoin speculation forums. You can easily see when to buy coins just when the number of FUD is the most highest point.

The pain is at its maximum level at the very bottom, always.

Mining should adjust to the price fluctuation so that it is at least break even thing to do.

Is it true that Monero is mined by botnets mainly?
For me it is irrelevant who is miner - I am not mining, I am buying it with hard currency so it doesn't play any role to whom I pay for my coins.

After all we were pretty close - sub 0.001.
If it had touched 0.0005 I would have scooped up some nice number of coins right there.
Meanwhile I bought silently on the way down. It was crazy and I felt pretty bad so I did not buy any significiant number of coins at each price point.
Nobody seemed to be interested in Monero and it was close to graveyard. I remember reading Warz desperate comments on Polo trollbox while the price kept dropping like a falling knife.

I was also trying to do my best to fear mongering - I wanted so badly the coin to drop to 0.0005. I guess I failed my mission.   

But that doesn't make any sense.
Still, if you believe in the coin but mining is done at loss, then mine more profitable coins that you can convert into a coin you believe in. You end up getting more coins that you believe in than by mining it.