Market Optimistic on Central Bank Intervention

Silver is trading at $28.08/oz, €22.71/oz and £18.01/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,415.70/oz, palladium at $582.50/oz and rhodium at $1,100/oz.

Ireland observed a national holiday on Monday.

Gold climbed $8.40 or 0.52% in New York yesterday and closed at $1,611.20/oz. Silver hit a high of $27.985 and closed with a gain of 0.5%.

Gold Prices/Rates/Fixes /Volumes - (Bloomberg)

Gold traded sideways Tuesday, maintaining gains from the previous 2 sessions as investors waited for action from the European Central Bank looking for intervention in solving the Eurozone debt crisis.

Market players are watching for any details on the ECB's bond purchasing plans, after bank chief Mario Draghi said last week that the ECB would target short-term debt, fuelling optimism in the bond markets.

A Reuter's poll of economists on Friday highlighted that they expect the Fed to start QE3 in September, but a top Fed official said that a stimulus package so close to a presidential election would not be prudent.

Since the ECB conditioned it would buy more government debt from Spain & Italy if they agreed to strict austerity packages, this has decreased pressure on either country to act quickly.

The Financial Times interviewed Ken Wattret, a BNP Paribas economist who said: "If people think this will all be sorted in a matter of days, or weeks, then they will be disappointed. We could be in limbo for months."

Cross Currency Table - (Bloomberg)

US Economic data out this week follows: Consumer Credit - Tuesday, Productivity and Unit Labor Costs - Wednesday, Initial Jobless Claims, the Trade Balance, and Wholesale Inventories - Thursday, and Import and Export Prices plus the Treasury Budget - Friday.

China is set to release inflation, trade figures and industrial output data for July, this week. China still has a strong affinity for the yellow metal.  

Gold flow from Hong Kong increased 6 times for the first half of the year, while flow in the opposite direction was unusually high for June.

China produced 36.3 tonnes of gold in June sending the total output to 177 tonnes up 7.7% for the year.