GOLD PRICES leapt Monday afternoon in London, with the benchmark LBMA Gold Price jumping to $1200 per ounce – the highest level in almost a week – as world stock markets hit new all-time highs amid news the Greek government has reshuffled its bail-out negotiating team.
Finance minister Yaris Varoufakis – who tweeted at the weekend that he
welcomed "hatred" from Eurozone partners calling him "amateur" and "time waster" after failed talks in Riga – was today demoted from chief co-ordinator in favor of deputy foreign minister Euclid Tsakalotos.
The Athens stock market reversed earlier losses to trade more than 4% up on the day, and the single currency itself reversed an earlier 0.5 cent drop against the US Dollar, but that failed to stop gold prices in Euro terms rising sharply.
Jumping back above the €1100 level, gold priced against the Euro regained one-third of last week's 2.8% drop – its sharpest 1-week drop since losing 21-month highs in late January.
European Brent crude oil retreated from a new 2015 high above $65 per barrel as major government bond prices eased back from record highs.
Spot silver prices mapped and extended the 3pm move in gold, jumping 4.4% to 6-session highs.
"The Greek government may [still] want to take negotiations to the wire," The Guardian quotes an un-named Eurozone official, "but does it know where the wire is?"
After seeing its Eurozone partners move the "deadline" for new reform measures to unlock €7.2 billion in aid back from April 30th to May and now to June, Athens is due to repay €250m to the International Monetary Fund on May 1st, with a further €1.4 billion due a week later and then €2.2bn the following week.
Opening this afternoon's run of the
LBMA Gold Price auction at $1187.25 per ounce, the price was then raised in 11 rounds – and moved by the greatest amount yet since this new benchmark replaced the century-old London Fixing in March – before supply and demand balanced at $1200.
Trade body the London Bullion Market Association meantime
announced a 'strategy review' by independent consultants Ernst & Young today, studying the Association's current capabilities, plus future opportunities and tasks which market participants and regulators may wish it to adopt.
The LBMA is not taking this "leadership role" because regulators have asked, stressed CEO Ruth Crowell in a webinar for members and associates Monday, but because – after the changes seen in 2014 – it wants to be "proactive" in maintaining or even deepening liquidity, improving transparency, and meeting regulators' objectives.
