Gold Prices End Flat But Post Biggest Weekly Gains since January

Gold prices ended flat on Friday, but posted their biggest weekly gains since early January following Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s reiteration that there was further scope of central bank providing additional monetary easing while the news that the European Central Bank was setting a specific bond yields range target for struggling currency union’s economies boosted investors’ confidence on the yellow metal.

The statement from Bernanke comes just two days after minutes from latest FOMC showed that central bank was considering monetary easing “fairly soon” unless the U.S. economy shows considerable improvement.

The metal has now touched its highest level since early May, a time when the yellow metal started to retreat amid absence of any hint from central banks with regard to next round of quantitative easing. On Friday, the bullion market was flat for most of the day, as bullion investors doubted further economic stimulating measures with U.S. economic indicators showing significant improvement.

However, sentiment on gold picked up soon after a letter written by Bernanke in response to questions posed by U.S. Rep. Darrel Issa showed that the Fed Chairman believes there is still room for further action by Fed. Whenever central banks decide to stimulate economy by adopting quantitative easing, more money is printed to buy long term government bonds which in turn keep interest rates at very low level, pushing up the prices and stoking gold’s inflation hedge appeal. In the previous two quantitative easing, gold prices have almost doubled in last four years.

For the week, gold climbed 3.4%. Besides, the metal also crossed its 200-day moving average and broke the shackle of tight trading range. The metal, since mid-May hovered in the band of $100 an ounce.

Commenting over gold’s remarkable performance during this week and its next support level, Adam Sarhan, Chief Executive at Sarhan Capital, said to Reuters, “Gold has this week broken out of its well-defined, multi-month downward trend- line. That resistance which kept gold in a range in the last several months should become a new level of support, suggesting gold is not going down but going higher.”

Holdings in gold-backed ETF have also soared this week. A data provided by Reuters showed that holdings of these ETF’s hit a record high of 71.253 million ounces by Friday.

The physical demand also picked up as dealers and investors anticipate further rally in the bullion market.

Spot gold eased a tad, down 3 cents to close at $1,670.01. In the previous session, it ended at $1,674.80 – highest level since April.

U.S. gold futures for December contract settled higher 10 cents at $1,672.90 an ounce; but the trading volume was nearly 35 percent below its 30-day average, according to Reuters.

The SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD) ended the day 0.03% higher at $161.96.

More Supporting Factors for Gold

News published on CNBC revealed that ECB is also considering setting a band target of bond yields for struggling member nations in order to put a lid on rising borrowing costs on sovereign debts. Meanwhile, there is widespread belief that China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China will also swing into action soon following the release of a preliminary HSBC PMI Index which showed manufacturing activities in China fell to its lowest level in last none months.

Earlier this week, China’s central bank chief hinted at additional monetary easing as he said that central bank should make use of all available means to ensure effective implementation of monetary policy.

Moving onto some other precious metal markets, Silver settled higher 0.4 percent at $30.64 an ounce.

Platinum edged up 0.5 percent to close at $1,545.49 an ounce, having touched a four month high on Thursday, at $1,558.49 an ounce. Palladium slipped 0.2 percent to close at $648.47 an ounce.

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Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.