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London
Gold Market Report
THE
PRICE OF GOLD reversed a 1.0% rally Thursday lunchtime
in London, dropping back to $1161 an ounce as European equities rose,
commodity markets trod water, and the US Dollar slipped to new multi-month
lows.
Silver prices struggled above $17.50 an ounce and US Treasury bonds also
slipped, nudging the 10-year yield back up to 3.00%.
"Physical
gold investment in the continental European market is very, very quiet,"
says German-refinery Heraeus' head of sales, Wolfgang Wrzesniok-Rossbach
Unlike the record volumes hit at the peak of the Greek debt crisis in May,
"It is not a mass market at the moment," he says.
New
York's giant SPDR exchange-traded gold trust yesterday reported its sharpest
outflow since April at 18 tonnes – some 1.4% of its gold bullion hoard
– and headed for its worst monthly contraction since Feb.
On Thursday morning the gold price in Euros fell to its lowest level since
May 3rd, and the single currency also hit a new 11-week high against the
Dollar.
Gold and the Euro previously showed a strong, positive correlation against
the US currency, but that connection has been severed throughout 2010.
On a rolling one-month basis, the correlation of daily changes in gold and
the Euro fell to minus 0.86 on Wednesday, just shy of the record inverse
correlation hit in mid-May.
That figure would read +1.0 if gold and the Euro moved together in lockstep,
or minus 1.0 if they moved perfectly opposite.
The 10-year average to end-2009 was +0.60.
"It seems people are moving a bit out of gold," said Standard
Chartered bank's head of commodities, Jeremy East, earlier this week.
"Financial meltdown and all the rest of it seems to be
disappearing."
Physical Gold demand has however risen this week in China – the world's
No.2 consumer – as well as India, according to wholesale dealers.
"Our Hong Kong office reports a rising premium on Shanghai gold"
above the spot gold price quoted by London's bullion banks, says one broker.
"Gold prices were well supported" in Asian trade overnight, agrees
a Hong Kong dealer, following what Scotia Mocatta analysts called
"trendless trading...an opportunity for consolidation."
"Demand in India has been quite strong over the past three days,"
says another London dealer, after this week's 2.2% drop in the Dollar price
– plus the second hike in India's official interest rate this month
– knocked the Rupee price down to an 11-week low.
The world's heaviest gold-consumer market, India typically sees strong buying
as the autumn festival season begins in Sept.
Gold imports to India – which has almost zero domestic gold mining
output – fell by 40% as prices surged to new record highs in the 3
months to end-June.
"Our sales to India in July [were] five times greater than June,"
says UBS bank strategist Edel Tully.
"Our sales desk have not experienced a stronger two-day period since
late January."
"Buying
is definitely there. Traders, who bought 10 kilos a few days back, are now
buying 40 kilograms," Reuters quotes a Kolkata trader.
European stocks rose meantime Thursday, with London's FTSE100 hitting a
10-week high.
The gold price in Sterling slid to £743 an ounce, a new 3-month low, as
the Pound extended this month's near-5% rise vs. the Dollar.
Adrian
Ash
Head of Research
Bullionvault.com
You can also Receive
your first gram of Gold free by opening an account with Bullion Vault : Click
here.
City correspondent
for The Daily Reckoning in London, Adrian Ash is head of research at BullionVault.com –
giving you direct access to investment gold, vaulted in Zurich, on $3 spreads
and 0.8% dealing fees.
Please Note: This article
is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place
for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk.
Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events
– and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on
it.
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