Gold Price Recaptures $1,500

 

GOLD PRICE NEWS – The gold price climbed $10.00 Friday morning, surging through $1,500 per ounce.  Strength in the price of gold was not matched by its sister precious metal, silver, which traded near unchanged at $35.12 per ounce.  Gold prices rose despite strength in the U.S. dollar versus the euro and pound.  Concerns that Greece was on the verge of restructuring its debt weighed on the euro and helped drive investment demand into precious metals.  Shares of gold mining producers and explorers followed the gold price higher this morning.

        Thursday was a relatively quiet trading session for the gold price, as it settled near unchanged at $1,495 per ounce.  Silver prices followed a similar trajectory, dipping into negative territory in morning trading but finishing near unchanged at $35.05 per ounce.   Heading into today’s session, the price of gold and silver have appreciated 5.2% and 13.2%, respectively, thus far in 2011.

      For the second consecutive day, gold equities outperformed the gold price.  The AMEX Gold Bugs Index (HUI), a basket of the world’s largest gold companies, ended the day higher by 0.3% at 528.10.  Notable gold shares advancing higher included Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM), Gold Fields (GFI), and Newmont Mining (NEM).  AEM, GFI, and NEM finished with gains of 0.6%, 0.3%, and 0.5%, respectively.

      The gold price showed a muted response on Thursday to several key U.S. economic reports, which collectively painted a cloudy picture on the state of the economy.  On the positive side, weekly jobless fell to 409,000, better than the 420,000 consensus estimate among economists.  However, three additional reports each missed expectations.  The Philadelphia Fed Index for May, a widely-followed measure of manufacturing activity, came in at 3.9 versus expectations of 18.0.  Existing home sales for April fell to 5.05 million, below the 5.23 million consensus estimate.  Lastly, April leading indicators declined 0.3%, below the unchanged level expected by economists.

      The largely disappointing economic reports helped to validate the latest Fed minutes’ assessment that the economy is recovering at a rather slow pace.  Analysts at MF Global wrote in a note to clients that the Federal Reserve’s stance “seemed to reduce expectations about tightening by suggesting that it would be at least two meetings until any policy tightening would take place. To us, that seemed a bit more dovish than expectations going into the meeting and seemed like reason enough to expect the quantitative ease trade to continue supporting gold prices.”

     The World Gold Council (WGC) also released a report on Thursday with bullish implications for the gold price.  The WGC announced that in the first quarter of 2011, gold demand increased by 11% year-over-year, with China and India comprising 63% of total demand.
Analysts at Commerzbank commented that “Given the huge rise of China’s demand, which surged by 32% in a year, the WGC’s earlier forecast that China’s gold demand would double in 10 years could be proven too conservative…Consequently, we expect the price of gold to pick up to $1,600 a troy ounce by year-end after temporary weakness in the summer.”

     The WGC also cited central bank purchases of gold as a key driver for the gold price. Marcus Grubb, a managing director at the World Gold Council, contended that “the most telling trend” in the gold market is a change in attitude of central banks toward the yellow metal.
“For the 20 years prior to 2010, they were a supplier to the gold market, regularly selling up to 400 million tonnes per year,” Grubb noted. “However this quarter they bought 129 tonnes, which is more than their total purchases throughout the whole of 2010. This is a significant shift in the market and confirms the change of the official sector from supplier to consumer.”

Nak beli Dinar emas,gold bar @ gelang emas?? Call / SMS nombor di bawah:

Amir 0129179055