Gold Prices Settle Lower; Silver Prices Slip
Gold prices edged lower on Friday as investors booked profits after the yellow metal hit a 10-day high in the preceding session; however, for the week it has gained about 4.2%, thanks to a robust demand from Asia. Silver prices also edged lower in trading on Friday.
Gold futures for June delivery settled down 0.6% or $8.40 to close at $1,453.60 while spot gold was last down 0.43% to $1,460.70 an ounce. Silver futures fell 0.68% to $23.98 an ounce, at last check.
Bullion buying in Asia continued to remain strong on Friday. Although the metal has climbed about 75% after it hit two-year low level of $1,321.35, in the preceding week, dealers in Asia said that demand for gold coins, bars and nuggets remained unusually high, according to Reuters.
A data provided by Reuters showed that premiums for gold bars in Hong Kong climbed as high $3 an ounce to spot gold prices in London, this week, while premiums in Singapore also remained at their highest to spot gold prices in London since October 2008 at $3 an ounce.
Nevertheless, gains are expected to remain capped next week as one of the world’s biggest gold buyers, China, will remain closed for 3 days on account of May Day break.
“This has been pretty much a physical-driven market for the past few days, and with Chinese players being on holiday next week, the market is looking at some reduction in demand and I guess on the back of that you have a bit of profit-taking at the moment,” said Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS, in a note to clients.
Meanwhile holdings of the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD), continued to drop this week. The fund’s holdings fell by another 0.25% to 1,090.27 tons on Thursday from 1,092.98 tons on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
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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.
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