Gold Bullion (GOLD)

[CaptWhizbang]

Big Majority Of Survey Participants See Higher Gold Prices Next Week


Friday June 1, 2012 12:03 PM

A worldwide slowdown in economic growth could lead to new rounds of stimulus from the various central banks and that has most participants in the weekly Kitco News Gold Survey forecasting higher prices for the yellow metal next week.

In the Kitco News Gold Survey, out of 33 participants, 22 responded this week. Of those 22 participants, 20 see prices up, while two see prices down, and zero are neutral. Market participants include bullion dealers, investment banks, futures traders, money managers and technical-chart analysts.

Many participants said the shakiness in the outlook for the global economy will ramp up expectations for some sort of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve or other central banks. The Federal Open Market Committee, the monetary-policy arm of the Fed, meets at the end of June.

Frank Lesh, broker and futures analyst at FuturePath Trading, summed it up this way. “Gold has established a trading low the past several weeks, although that was only confirmed after this morning’s trade. Gold sees QE coming from the Fed and the ECB (European Central Bank) and traders now have a reason to be long again, and to cover the short positions that have been building for the past few months. Significant resistance will be around $1,655 and the market will have to close through that level to turn up on the charts. We should expect to see that level tested (really) soon so I look for gold to be higher next week,” Lesh said.

Phil Streible, senior commodities broker at RJO Futures, also said the drop in U.S. Treasury yields to record lows could push investors to gold as they seek value.

Those who see weakness in gold said the problems in Europe are likely to fester and that could eventually weigh on the metal, as it has in the past.

There were no netural views on gold for this week.



http://www.kitco.com/kgs/goldsurvey_june01.2012.html