Precious Metals
Gold noodled along near break-even through Hong Kong and the first half of the London session on Tuesday, but fell off during the first hour of New York trading and never recovered, finishing at $914.90/oz., down $8.20. Overnight, gold has edged lower.
Platinum declined from Hong Kong into the first hour of the Comex session, then traded sideways for the rest of the day, ending at $1045/oz., down $11. Overnight, platinum is slightly higher.
Silver held in the green until mid-morning, but dropped precipitously from there through the Comex, before a small late upmove carried it to a close at $12.69/oz., down 20 cents. Overnight, silver has fallen off. (Click here for charts)
The precious metals plowed through a third straight day of little in the way of major moves, but with a bias to the downside yet again.
Rising equities and oil provided no noticeable lift, nor did a dollar that was only marginally higher against the euro provide much of a drag. That made for a pretty blah day all the way round.
In fact, the stock market rally is clearly working against gold. “Rising equity markets are still seen as diverting some portions of the investment funds previously earmarked for gold,” said Kitco’s Jon Nadler.
Nor are chart watchers able to work up much enthusiasm at the moment.
“Given the failure to clear above $940 last week the metal could look to test toward $890, as further stale long liquidation emerges,” wrote James Moore, a precious metals analyst at TheBullionDesk.com.
However, buyers are still flocking to paper gold. SPDR Gold Shares set yet another record on Monday, as it added 12.23 metric tons (393,000 ounces) of yellow metal to its vault. GLD now holds 1,069.05 tons (34.37 million ounces).
GLD’s popularity notwithstanding—it’s up 37% for the year—the pessimists are writing things like this: Government “spending could eventually decrease the need for gold as a hedge against financial uncertainty,” according to Tom Pawlicki, of MF Global.
Quite the opposite of what common sense would suggest.
AI
