Gold

May 23 2013 12:19 PM

Gold is up yet again today. The precious metal is being traded at $1,390.85 this morning. As before, investors are still cautious as they don’t know how long this will last. Since the price of gold plummeted April 15th igniting spot losses across the country and then slowly gaining steam only to fall again. As a result, investors have been wary about the precious metal, some even second guessing investments.

May 21 2013 7:44 AM

On Monday, May 13, 2013 we wrote that Gold Prices would Re-Test $1350/oz level and so they did, trading sub $1340/0z at one stage. Gold had fallen for 7 straight days from $1470/oz before the slide was arrested earlier today with a bounce that pushed gold up to $1391/oz. This move correlates inversely with the 7 day winning streak put in by the US$, which also came to an abrupt halt today when it fell 0.50% to close at 83.93 on the US$ Index. As far as we can ascertain there was a few frantic minutes of buying that moved gold higher by around $30.00. Such quick movement suggests that someone who was short wanted to close and close quickly, as gold was climbing slowly but surely at the time. The snap shot below depicts the day’s action:

May 16 2013 8:06 AM

There are no surprises in the latest World Gold Council Gold Demand Trends report other than the fact that statistics show global demand for gold in Q1 2013 was on the increase before the COMEX raid on April 15th. This is a clear indication that the fundamentals supporting a strong price for gold in the long term remain and also helps to explain why there was such a shortage of gold bars and coins in the weeks after April 15th.

May 15 2013 12:24 PM

Gold is still in trouble as it continues to fall. This morning gold prices are down $12.61 to $1,413.60 an ounce sparking investors to worry that the downward trend will continue.

May 14 2013 3:46 PM

National Union of Mineworkers believes the strike against Lonmin is in reaction to the killing of a veteran worker from its rival union.

May 14 2013 9:07 AM

The European Union will today meet to discuss and move forward the proposal to ‘bail-in’ depositors with savings of over €100,000 as part of future bank wind-downs. It now looks likely that the EU is going to take unprecedented steps to sequester monies from its citizens in the event of future bank failures.

May 13 2013 3:34 PM

While Gold has seen a decent rebound, Silver and the mining shares (the more speculative side of the complex) have failed to sustain any rebound despite tremendously supportive sentiment amid an extreme oversold condition. Is the failure to rebound bearish? Not really. This is a sector that is completely sold out but there are yet to be enough buyers to generate a sustained rebound. The combination of strength in conventional asset classes (stocks and bonds) and poor performance over the past two years is causing this sector to read like the heart rate monitor of a heart patient. The sellers are gone and the buyers are scant. We believe the bottom is in and a rebound should begin very soon. However, we are more concerned with what will be the driving force for a sustainable rebound which will evolve into a new cyclical bull market.

May 13 2013 8:53 AM

Driving the sentiment was the report that U.S. jobless benefits decreased to their lowest rate since 2007. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser forecasted that day unemployment will drop to 7% by December 2013 and he favours reducing the Fed’s $85 billion monthly bond purchases next month. Plosser however has no vote on Fed policy this year.

May 10 2013 8:52 AM

As the global economic slump continues central bankers, such as Mario Draghi, and politicians have vowed “to do whatever it takes” to get economies back on track. Such policies while having near term benefits are considered extremely risky in the longer run by many commentators as they could beckon runaway inflation or stagflation, with ruinous results.