By Mr. Prithviraj Kothari, MD, RSBL
So far this year has been positive for gold compared to the past couple of years. Reasons behind this are the current market uncertainty and unconventional monetary policies that have continued to support the prices of Gold along with central banks and ETF’s demand for gold has given a boost to Gold prices.
Gloom over the global economic outlook and concern over central banks’ firepower, uncertainty about China’s economic recovery and growing volatility ahead of the UK’s EU referendum next month are adding fuel to the fire.
Gold price action has been erratic at the start of the new trading month. At the start of May, gold surged to $1303, its strongest since January 2015, but earlier last week fell to a two-week low of $1257 and currently trading around $1250.
Precious metals showed a firm up move at the start of the week, with prices up an average of 0.7 percent, gold prices were up 0.5 percent at $1,271. But it has slowly faded and the down move has begun which could be due to the fact that over-extended gross fund long positions in Gold and Silver have made the markets vulnerable to a spate of profit-taking.
The Fed minutes released yesterday caused an increase in Dollar strength. The statements proved to be more hawkish than the market expected where some FED members would look forward to a June month rate hike if the economic situation improves. Labour market conditions continue to improve and the inflation progress is towards the committee objective but the consistency is important for the next hike to take place.
But physical demand in India has been a major obstacle. High prices and industrial action in India led to a 19-percent drop in jewellery demand that could not be offset by seasonal buying and the increase around the traditional gold-buying festivals.
Other data released during the week that influenced gold prices were:
- In US data released Thursday, weekly unemployment claims during the week ending May 7 raised for the third straight week to 294,000, above the forecast of 270,000.
- Import prices month-over-month in April ticked up 0.3 percent, under the economic consensus of 0.6 percent.
- The weak US data had sent spot gold to as high as $1,281 overnight but the rally proved short-lived as it was soon sold down to the mid-$1,260’s.
The negative interest rate atmosphere in Europe and Japan, combined with uncertainty over the Chinese economy, anticipation of slower interest rate rises in the US and global stock market turmoil have proved to be in favour of gold.
The yellow metal along with Silver have been consolidating but are also holding up and what we need to watch is that whether it could suffer significant profit-taking given the extent of the long positions.
Until there is a sustained break above $1280, a new rally in Gold does not appear on the cards while Silver needs to break above $17.20. Currently, according to me in the Indian SPOT markets the Gold would trade in the range of INR 28,900 to INR 30,300 while in Silver the range would be INR 38,500 to INR 42,000.
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The primary purpose of this article by Mr. Prithviraj Kothari is to educate the masses of the current happenings in the Bullion world.
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