-By Mr. Prithviraj Kothari, MD, RSBL (RiddiSiddhi Bullions Ltd.)
This week a lot has happened with precious metals and in the coming week too a lot is bound to happen with gold, silver and platinum
The bears are in the driving seat in Gold. Gold prices shed 5.6 percent for the week. Gold fell to a five-week low on Friday at $1,304.56, heading for its worst week in more than two months.
For the first time in a month silver traded below $22. It suffered a huge sell off on Thursday. Silver prices fell 5.32 per cent on Thursday, closing at $21.90.
Platinum was not sparred from the selling pressure, falling 2.31 percent to close at $1,438 and saw some slight recovery to the $1,440 levels now.
There are various factors responsible for this Sell - off. Let's take a look at them one by one.
SYRIAN EFFECT:
Gold prices rallied above $1,430 an ounce to a three-and-a-half-month high in late August on safe-haven buying, as the United States and its allies looked set to launch military strikes on Syria.
But the metal’s appeal has been dented by diplomatic efforts to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control, which may avert a US military strike. The risk mood improved with Syria welcoming a Russian plan to surrender their chemical weapons
Obama has threatened to act alone, if necessary, and his administration credits that threat with Russia's surprise proposal last week to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons arsenal to international control. Outside of the United Nations, however, administration officials insisted they would not take the military threat off the table.
As of now gold doesn't seem to be playing much to the tunes of the Middle East tensions as the UN has clearly not given a go ahead for any attack on Syria.
QE TAPERING EFFECT:
The FOMC meeting to be held on 17-18th September and its speculations over the tapering of the quantitative easing program will be one of the biggest events for the movement.
Since the inception of the Fed’s quantitative easing programme in 2008, gold price has more than doubled from about $837 an ounce in 2008 to reach a peak above $1,900 in 2011.
Since the Ben Bernanke’s Speech on QE3, prices have saw humungous correction and fell to a low of $1,180 in June this year.
With talks of possible withdrawal of their liquidity injection programme coming up at the FOMC meeting next week, it is no wonder we see such volatility in bullion prices.
DEMAND EFFECT:
Another factor that affected gold prices was the lacklustre physical gold demand, particularly out of India, one of the biggest importers of Gold, where the Government restrictions to import Gold have further dented the supply. The dramatic trend decline in the Indian Rupee against the US dollar has sharply increased the local price of gold with the gold price measured in Rupee up some 20% since late June.
The Indian jewellery market, which is a major component of global jewellery demand, has tended to be price sensitive. Thus the high local gold price is likely to dampen Indian jewellery demand and pull down gold prices unless the rupee depreciates further
Although physical demand has picked up in Asian Markets over the past two days, it is not nearly as strong as what we have witnessed in at the start of August. The strong physical demand during August had pushed plenty of shorts out of the market (this short covering assisted in pushing gold above $1,400). Should physical demand improve now, there may not be the same level of short covering to help push gold higher again.
MINING EFFECT:
Furthermore, the trend weakening of the South African Rand and the Australian dollar have lowered gold mining cuts in the two countries with the highest production costs which makes production costs less likely. It is also worth noting that the gold labour strikes in South Africa are now over which will may pull gold prices down
Having discussed these factors, I would expect Gold to trade sideways until FOMC meeting with its stimulus plan can lead to a direction.
The primary purpose of this blog by Prithviraj Kothari - MD, RSBL, is to educate the masses of the current happenings in the Bullion world.”
- Previous blog -
"Gold was pulled between two major forces- Syrain attack and the QE tapering"
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