The gold price remained at five-month highs on Tuesday, with a test of $1,300 looking likely in the coming sessions should safe-haven buying continue.
Spot gold was last at $1,292.00/1,292.80 per ounce, up $17.10 on Monday’s close after hitting another fresh five-month high at $1,295.10 – despite the dollar remaining near its 2003 highs against the euro at 1.1556.
Prices were initially bolstered after Chinese GDP growth for 2014 at 7.4 percent fell short of Beijing’s 7.5-percent target – the slowest rate of growth since 1990. Fixed asset investment also fell to 15.7 percent from 15.8 percent previously.
Investor attention has now turned to the ECB’s policy meeting on Thursday at which a full-scale quantitative easing programme is expected to be announced.
Gold denominated in the euro continues to trade higher, hitting another fresh May 2013 high at 1,117.80.
“Heading towards the ECB decision, we may well see risk reduction emerge purely on the basis of how spectacularly vague the ECB has been about what it might do and what the ultimate aim of its asset purchase programme actually is,” Standard Bank’s Leon Westgate said.
“The ECB announcement could be decisive and clear and could be a really positive surprise for the market, or it could be worse than useless, depending on what they actually come out with and the mechanism they use. As such, a reduction of risk or the branching out into assets less correlated with the euro may well start to emerge,” he added.
Further safe-haven buying is also coming from news that far-left and anti-austerity Greek party Syriza has increased its lead ahead of elections on Sunday, according to the latest polls.
In other metals, silver also failed to surpass an earlier high of $18.03, meeting resistance at $18 per ounce. The metal was last at $17.91/17.96 per ounce, up 27 cents.
The PGMs are also performing well. Platinum hit a fresh three-month high at $1,281 and remains just off that level at $1,278/1,283 per ounce, up $22 despite the end of a strike at Northam Platinum’s Zondereinde mine in South Africa.
Palladium was up $12 at $771/776 per ounce.
“The performance [of palladium] is in contrast to platinum which continues to lag behind its sibling. Both markets are expected to be in deficit this year, though palladium is by far the tighter of the two metals, with it also benefitting from cheap oil and the perception that US and Chinese demand for petrol driven cars will step up a gear,” Westgate added.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)
The post Gold price at 5-mth peak, all precious metals in high ground appeared first on The Bullion Desk.
No comments:
Post a Comment