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Today’s AM fix was USD
1,747.25, EUR 1,347.56, and GBP 1,090.87 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,734.75, EUR 1,345.39, and GBP 1,088.37 per
ounce.
Silver is trading at $34.12/oz, €26.43/oz and
£21.40/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,616.00/oz,
palladium at $660.50/oz and rhodium at $1,060/oz.
Gold rose
$21.80 or 1.26% in New York on Friday and closed at $1,751.20. Silver hit a
high of $34.16 and finished with a gain of 2.19%. Gold was up 2.28% for the
week and silver soared 5.61% for the week.
Gold edged down on a Monday
as speculators took their profits as prices rallied on thin volumes on Friday
to their highest in a month on technical buying. A strong fall in the
greenback triggered rapid gains in commodities and options-related buying on
Friday.
 
XAU/USD 1 Year – (Bloomberg)
Tonight US Congress will
meet to attempt to devise a plan to avert the US fiscal cliff which will
throw the US into a spiral of tax hikes and budgetary cuts that will lead the
US economy deeper into a recession this January.
Another short term
‘resolution’ will almost certainly be achieved which will allow
the US to keep spending like a broke drunken sailor and which will again
store up far greater fiscal and monetary problems. The scale of these deep
rooted structural challenges is so great that they are likely to affect the
US sooner rather than later.
The euro racked up a seven
month high against the yen and is holding near a one month high against the
US dollar as the meetings amongst Greek creditors continue and hope to reach
an outcome today.
Greece’s goal is
reducing the 190% debt to GDP ratio to a more manageable 120% in eight to ten
years. The dilemma is that the IMF and eurozone
finance ministers want to cease payments until a new deal is agreed because
they have no guarantee that the financing won’t continue indefinitely.
Can Greek debt become
manageable without creditors writing off some of the loans? France and Italy
would vote to reduce interest repayments on already granted loans while other
countries like Germany would not.
A consensus was reached when
German central bank governor Jens Weidmann
suggested that Greece could "earn" a reduction in debt it owes to
euro zone governments in a few years if it diligently implements all the
agreed reforms. The European Commission also supports this view.
Global investment demand for
gold remains robust with the amount in exchange-traded products backed by the
metal rising 0.1% to 2,606.3 metric tons.
Meanwhile reports of the
death of the Indian gold buyer have again been greatly exaggerated as India's
net gold import for domestic consumption is likely to be about 800 tonnes this year following a pick-up in demand during the
festive season, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).
Last year, the net import
for domestic consumption was 969 tonnes. This is a
significant fall but not surprising considering the sharply rising price. It
shows that the Indian cultural attachment to gold will continue and India may
be becoming acclimatised to higher gold prices.
This week US economic data
for Tuesday include Durable Orders, the Case-Shiller
20-city Index, Consumer Confidence, and the FHFA Housing Price Index. On
Wednesday, New Home Sales and the Fed’s Beige Book are published. On
Thursday, Initial Jobless Claims, GDP, and Pending Home Sales can be viewed.
Friday’s data is Personal Income and Spending, Core PCE Prices, and
Chicago PMI.
Cross Currency Table – (Bloomberg)
Gold deposits in Turkey have
grown from 3.1 billion liras to 16 billion liras in the past year, Bloomberg
reported on news reported in the daily Turkish newspaper Aksam
which cited Denizbank AS gold banking group manager
Cem Turgut Gelgor.
According to the Turkish
bank Denizbank, one of the largest in Turkey, it
collected 1.5 tons of gold in 7 months.
Deposits have increased from
500 kg to over 6 tons or over 192,000 ounces (worth some €260 million)
over an unspecified period.
Kuveyt Turk Katilim
Bankasi AS has added 3.8 tons of gold,
Aksam quotes Kuveyt Turk
product development group manager Mustafa Dereci as
saying. Dereci said that Kuveyt
Turk is providing new products such as “gold from the ATM.”
The World Gold Council
estimates that there are around 5,000 tons of gold remaining outside the
financial system, gold which the Turkish people have prudently accumulated over
the years as a store of wealth to protect from currency depreciation and
debasement.
Gold jewellery
producer and wholesaler Karakas Atlantis Kiymetli Madenler AS is “working to bring unregistered gold
into the system,” Chairman Kamil Karakas says
in e-mailed statement today reported on by Bloomberg.
The gold wholesaler is
meeting regularly with jewelers and banks in effort to draw unregistered gold
assets into financial system.
Separately Turkey is aiming
to position itself as a leading player in the gold jewellery
and bullion industry by also becoming one of the leading gold and precious
metal refining countries in the world.
Turkey is at a level to
compete with international gold refining centers like Germany and
Switzerland, Istanbul Gold Exchange deputy chairman Osman Sarac
said today according to Dunya newspaper.
Turkey imports scrap gold
mostly from Germany and the United Arab Emirates, the gold is turned into
standard bullion coins and bars in Turkish refineries and exported.
Turkey imported 114.8 tons
of gold by Nov. 14 this year, of which 46.6 tons was scrap, according to
Istanbul Gold Exchange data.
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