Gold futures score biggest gain of the month
new
Feb. 25, 2013, 2:52 p.m. EST
By Myra P. Saefong and Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures rebounded Monday from last
week’s selloff to score their biggest gain of the month, as analysts say
a recent report hinted at a potential bottom for the metal’s prices.
Investors also weighed gold’s safe-haven appeal against a backdrop of
early exit results from Italy’s election and a rating downgrade on the
United Kingdom.
Gold for delivery in April
GCJ3
+0.32%
settled at $1,586.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York
Mercantile Exchange, up $13.80, or 0.9%. That was the biggest one-day
gain for futures prices month to date.
GCJ3
1,591.70,
+5.10,
+0.32%
Gold fell $5.80, or 0.4%, on Friday to settle at a seven-month low of
$1,572.80 an ounce, closing out last week with a 2.3% loss. See: Gold ends at seven-month low, down 2.3% on week.
“The current rally is reflective of some very significant moves in the
‘paper’ gold markets,” said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission released its Commitments
of Traders report on Friday detailing traders’ standing in the futures
markets on Tuesday, Feb. 19. See the full COT report.
“The producer merchants, the category that includes the natural hedgers,
are at their lowest net short position since 2008 at the same time that
the managed money traders, the funds, are record short and at their
lowest net long position since Nov. 18, 2008,” Gene Arensberg, editor of
the Got Gold Report, wrote in emailed comments.
The funds showed a collective reduction of nearly 36% in their net long
gold positions to an “extremely low” 42,810 contract net long position,
he said.
“I have not seen the COT ‘rubber bands’ so over-stretched in opposite
directions as they are now,” Arensberg said, noting that extreme lows
for the managed money net long positions are “usually associated with
important bottoms for the price of gold.” See The Tell blog: Huge gold short position details in Commitments of Traders.
Lundin said the “’hot money’ sector, or the managed money traders, is
usually wrong about the direction of the gold market (in comparison to
the producer/merchants), and their massive net short position is setting
the table for a potentially explosive short-covering rally.” See The Tell blog: UBS is predicting a ‘major gold rally’ this year.
Also, given that the report is based on data only from Tuesday, “it does
not even capture the additional shorting that was likely when gold was
under pressure the rest of [last] week,” said James Turk, founder and
chairman of GoldMoney..
Rebound
Gold’s rebound on Monday came as concerns over Europe intensified. Gold
is seen as a safe-haven asset that tends to benefit at times of
political and economic uncertainty.
Exit polls from Italy’s election weren’t as clear-cut as first appeared
as estimates signaled a stronger showing for former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi in the Senate. See: ‘Worst-case’ fears rise on Italy election results.
“The outcome of the elections in Italy are regarded as an indicator of
whether the debt crisis in the euro zone could flare up again,”
according to analysts at Commerzbank AG.
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Adding to worries about Europe, Moody’s Investors Service late Friday
stripped the U.K. from its coveted triple-A rating, paring the credit
rating to Aa1. See: U.K. ratings downgrade weighs on the pound.
“We fear something much bigger than poorer growth is developing in the
developed world overall,” said Julian Phillips, founder and contributor
to GoldForecaster.com.
In the currency markets, the dollar index
DXY
-0.06%
turned up to 81.789 from 81.454 late Friday as the euro
EURUSD
-0.09%
turned lower. Earlier dollar weakness had provided support for gold,
making the dollar-denominated commodity more attractive for holders of
other currencies. Gold futures finished off the session high of $1,594.
In economic news, the initial reading of HSBC’s Chinese manufacturing
survey showed a slower pace of expansion in February, due to a decrease
in new export orders and a backlog of existing work. See: China manufacturing growth eases, HSBC says
Selloff concerns
Gold was battered last week, in part after the minutes from January’s
Federal Open Market Committee meeting hinted that the Federal Reserve
may scale back its massive asset-buying program earlier than expected.
Suki Cooper, commodities strategist at Barclays Capital, noted that gold
weakened even after an improvement in demand in India and buying in
China.
“Prices have struggled to find a cushion from the physical market as it
fails to offset the weakness on the investment side,” she said.
Net redemptions accelerated in February, Cooper noted, with the largest gold exchange-traded product, the SPDR Gold Trust
GLD
+0.90%
, seeing net redemptions of 21 metric tons in a single session for its weakest daily session since August 2011.
Monday afternoon, the SPDR Gold Trust traded up 0.6% at $153.84. The iShares Gold Trust
IAU
+0.91%
was also up 0.6% at $15.46.
Adam Koos, president at Libertas Wealth Management Group, said that
there was significant support in GLD at around $150 and at $15 for IAU.
“If I’m a bottom-feeder looking for a trading idea, I might consider
either [exchange-traded fund] here with a stop at $1,480” an ounce for
gold — around $148 for GLD and $14.75 on the IAU, he said.
In other metals trading, silver for March delivery
SIH3
-0.35%
rose 53 cents, or 1.9%, to end at $28.99 an ounce, after tumbling 4.7% last week.
“The potential for panic buying in silver is even greater” than in gold,
said GoldMoney’s Turk. “In contrast to gold, the COT report shows that
the longs have not capitulated and are taking on the shorts head-on.”
“Shorts in both gold and silver are vulnerable here,” he said. Both metals are “oversold and due for a bounce.”
March copper futures
HGH3
+0.14%
added 1 cent, or 0.3%, to $3.54 a pound. Copper lost 5.5% last week.
April platinum
PLJ3
+0.26%
tacked on $13.30, or 0.8%, to $1,620.70 an ounce while March palladium
PAH3
-1.74%
gained $13.75, or 1.9%, to $749.05 an ounce. The metals lost 4.2% and 2.4%, respectively, last week.
Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter @MktwSaefong.
Polya Lesova is MarketWatch's New York deputy
bureau chief. Follow her on Twitter @PolyaLesova. Barbara Kollmeyer in
Madrid contributed to this report.
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