Gold Prices Advance, Silver Prices Flat
Gold prices extended gains during Asian trading hours on Friday; and are heading towards logging best weekly performance in last 18 months thanks to strong physical-side demand from Asia and bargain hunting following last week’s spectacular plunge. Silver prices, meanwhile, were nearly flat in early trading on Friday.
The metal momentarily slumped to its two-year low price of around $1,321, in the previous week after batch of gloomy economic indicators from China and the U.S. triggered panic sell-off of commodities and industrial metals.
However, buyers in Asia pounced upon the opportunity, which prevented any further damage. Although gold prices have rebounded more than $100 an ounce in last two weeks, buying interest is still intact in Asia, reflected by rising premiums on gold bars and coins over spot gold bars’ prices in London.
At last check, gold futures for June delivery edged up 0.36% to $1.467.20 an ounce while spot gold added 0.08% to $1,468.16 an ounce.
Speaking to Reuters over unprecedented demand for gold bars, coins and nuggets in Asia and possible price course, Ronald Leung, chief dealer at Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong, said, “There’s panic buying. Everybody is buying gold. It still has a chance to go up to $1,500 and maybe a bit more. $1,525 is then the big barrier.”
“It’s not easy to go back down to $1,400 as long as the physical market is still tight. The thing is that there are no immediate stocks,” added Leung.
Gold prices also received support from the International Monetary Fund’s report which showed that Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan continued to increase their bullion holdings in March.
Nonetheless, holdings of the world’s largest gold-backed exchange trade fund, the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD), continued to fall. A data provided by Reuters showed that the fund’s holdings contracted another 0.25% on Thursday from Wednesday.
Silver futures slipped 0.06 $24.13 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.
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