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GOLD PRICES extended their New Year 2018 rally against the Dollar in London on Wednesday morning, rising for the 10th time in 11 trading days.

In the last 50 years the Dollar price of gold bullion has beaten such a run only 7 times before.

Touching $1321 per ounce in ‘spot’ trading, physical bullion fixed at $1314.60 in Wednesday’s AM London Gold Price auction, the highest benchmark value since mid-September.

Since this run began on 14 December physical gold bullion offered for settlement in London has now gained 5.9% in US Dollar terms.

Gold was last this strong in February 2016, its best-ever run of day-on-day gains at London’s morning benchmarking auction.

“Gold has reclaimed the 200-day Moving Average [now at $1267],” said a technical analysis from bullion market makers Societe Generale on Tuesday, “and short term it should head towards $1313,

[its] September high and the 61.8% retracement of recent down move.”

Above there, SocGen sees resistance around $1330 and then $1350 – the “neckline of [a bullish] multi-year inverse Head and Shoulders” formation.

Silver meantime fixed at $17.125 at midday Wednesday, rising for the 9th time in the last 10 trading days.

Its best run since April 2016, that has only been matched or beaten 24 times since 1968.

“Momentum indicators are bullish,” says a technical note from bullion market-makers Scotia Mocatta’s New York office, “as silver appears poised to target the November high” at $17.35 per ounce.

World stock markets also continued their New Year 2018 surge following New York’s fresh all-time highs overnight.

Commodities as a group stalled however, holding little changed overall from Tuesday’s new 2-year highs on the Reuters-Jefferies CRB index.

On the political front, the regime in North Korea re-opened a telephone line to the democratic government in South Korea for the first time in 2 years as dynastic dictator Kim Jong-un said he’d like to discuss sending athletes to next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Responding to Kim’s claim that his nuclear arsenal is ready to fire at any time, “I too have a Nuclear Button,” tweeted US president Donald Trump, “but my Button works!“

The regime in Tehran called for pro-government protests to counter marches and calls across No.5 oil-producer nation Iran for its theocratic leadership to quit over high inflation and worsening living standards.

European regulators meantime backtracked on parts of today’s new ‘Mifid II’ rules, granting an extra 30 months for derivatives platforms from base-metal venue the London Metal Exchange to LIFFE, Eurex and Intercontinental Exchange to comply with the new requirements.

Directed by the European Union, the raft of new rules due to come into force today aim to protect investors in financial instruments from shares to bonds, derivatives and collective schemes by boosting transparency.

“Mifid II is expected to cost the finance industry more than €2.5bn to implement,” says the Financial Times, “with the largest banks spending more than €40m each on compliance.”

While physical property including wholesale bullion is beyond the scope of new regulation, over-cautious interpretation of new regulations by banking compliance departments has been blamed for problems with the London benchmarking auctions since the century-old ‘fixings’ were replaced by independently administered electronic processes starting in 2014.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

GOLD PRICES edged back up to $1280 per ounce on Thursday in London as world stock markets rose for the first session in six.

With gold prices trading just $10 per ounce above the 13-week closing low of week-ending Friday 3 November, so-called “junk bond” prices also rallied with equities.

US corporate bonds rated below investment grade gained 0.7% from yesterday’s new 7-month low as measured by the SPDR Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (NYSEArca:JNK).

Wednesday night saw a new all-time record set for a work of art sold at auction, when Salvator Mundi — reputedly by 15th Century Italian Leonardo da Vinci — fetched $450m at Christie’s in New York.

The sale had been squeezed into a sale of Post-War & Contemporary Art.

“This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality,” the New York Times quotes one Manhattan art adviser.

Shares in Christies’ competitor Sotheby’s (NYSE:BID) today rose 2.9%.

BID fell almost 90% during the global financial crisis of a decade ago, having sunk previously ahead of the Tech Stock Bubble bursting in early 2000.

Sales volumes through the global fine-art market shrank by some 60% over the two years following Tokyo’s stockmarket and property crash starting in late 1989.

“Most of the world is well advanced in the economic cycle,” says a new report from French investment bank Societe Generale, warning clients that “at the same time, leverage is high, especially on non-financial corporate balance sheets.

Should the US Fed continue raising interest rates, it says, a slowdown in economic growth will “put global debt back in the spotlight and have [a] spiralling effect.

“Historically [such] periods signalled a bull run for gold and [the stockmarket volatility index] VIX in particular.”

The Dollar on Thursday held above yesterday’s 1-month lows to the Euro currency as new US data showed industrial production in the world’s largest economy rising just ahead of forecast in October.

Fresh Eurozone data showed a slight slowdown in inflation across the 19-nation currency union at 1.4% per year.

British retail sales meantime showed a smaller than expected decline last month from September’s jump, helping Sterling to rally and curbing the gold price in UK Pounds per ounce below £970, barely changed for the week so far.

“The financial markets are bulging with systemic risk,” says the latest quarterly letter from gold-mining fund manager John Hathaway to clients of Tocqueville Asset Management, pointing to “financial-asset valuations at all-time highs” while the size of US government debt now makes “exit from radical monetary policy difficult, if not impossible.”

“History teaches that resolution of [such] impasses most often results in monetary debasement,” says Hathaway.

“Gold and silver constitute a short list of non-financial assets with monetary characteristics.”

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

GOLD PRICES held or rose near multi-week highs for most investors outside the US Dollar and Euro on Thursday, as the Bank of England followed the Federal Reserve’s widely expected “no change” decision by raising UK rates off an all-time record low as analysts and traders had forecast.

The Pound fell hard on the UK news, erasing all of this week’s prior 2 cent gain to trade back at $1.3050 on what pundits called profit-taking.

That pushed the UK gold price in Pounds per ounce up towards 2-week highs above £974.

Dollar gold prices held little changed at $1277, slightly higher for the week so far, while Euro priced gold held at €1096.

European stock markets slipped and London’s FTSE100 gave back all of a sharp jump made as the Pound fell on the Bank of England’s 12 noon decision.

“Today’s decision is straightforward,” said BoE governor Mark Carney, presenting today’s decision alongside the Bank’s latest quarterly Inflation Report.

“With unemployment at a 42-year low, inflation above target and [GDP] growth just above its new, lower speed limit, the time has come to ease our foot off the accelerator.”

“A rules-based approach” on the so-called non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (Nairu) “would deliver higher rates faster” wrote French investment bank analyst Kit Juckes last month of potential US Federal Reserve chair John Taylor’s academic analysis.

“These aren’t normal times,” said Carney at the Bank of England on Thursday, pointing to the UK’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union as a cause of “uncertainties [now] weighing on domestic activity, which has slowed even as global growth has risen significantly.”

“Inflation is above our 2% target because of the sharp fall in the Pound triggered by the EU referendum,” says the Bank’s Inflation Report.

But even after today’s rate rise, “Debt servicing costs remain historically very low,” say the minutes from the Monetary Policy Committee’s meeting.

Two members dissented, preferring to hold rates at 0.25% and mirroring the previous run of 7-2 decisions against raising rates.

When Bank Rate last stood at 0.5%, back in July 2016, inflation in the official UK consumer-price index was running at 0.6% per year. It came in at a 5-year record of 3.0% for September this year.

So far in 2017 gold priced in Sterling has averaged its highest-ever January-to-October level outside of 2012 at £980 per ounce.

“US interest rates and their expectations have for some time been the single most important driver of gold price fluctuations,” says the new Precious Metals Brief from institutional news-source PAM Insight and specialist analysts Metals Focus.

With Donald Trump expected to name current Fed governor Jerome Powell as his pick for the central bank’s role of chair later today, Wednesday’s “no change” statement from the US central bank was seen “reaffirming the view that a December hike is in their baseline, and it’s in ours as well,” says UK bank Barclay’s chief US economist Michael Gapen, speaking to Bloomberg in New York.

However, the odds of no change or just 1 more rise before October 2018 rose after Wednesday’s Fed decision, reaching 65.4% from 62.0% this time last week according to betting on interest-rate futures.

Today’s UK economic forecasts from the Bank of England project two more interest rate hikes over the next 3 years, taking the cost of short-term borrowing up to 1.0% by late-2020 – some 18 months after the UK is scheduled to leave the EU.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

GOLD PRICES jumped to breach yesterday’s 6-week Dollar highs above $1265 per ounce Friday lunchtime in London as the US currency fell yet again on the FX market following very mixed GDP data from the world’s largest economy.

Annualized US growth in gross domestic product matched Wall Street forecasts, jumping to 2.6% between April and June from the first quarter’s 1.2% pace and led by a surge in consumer spending, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said.

But price inflation came in well below analyst predictions, slowing to just 0.3% on the PCE measure – closely watched by Federal Reserve policymakers – from the previous pace of 2.2%.

Silver outperformed gold prices as the Dollar fell back towards Thursday’s 14-month lows against the world’s other major currencies, gaining 1.1% for the week at $16.71 per ounce.

Platinum held lower, down more than $3 per ounce at $931.

Eurozone government bond prices slipped meantime, nudging longer-term interest rates higher for the 19-nation currency union after member states Spain and Greece reported stronger-than-expected GDP growth.

“Longer-term investors continue to be attracted to gold as a means of diversification and to hedge against rising uncertainty across other asset classes,” says a new note from French investment and bullion market-making bank Societe Generale, looking at “relatively little changed” holdings of gold-backed ETF trust funds worldwide.

The largest such product however, the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca:GLD), yesterday saw its fifth daily outflow of metal in a row as shareholders again liquidated stock.

Shrinking by more than 7% since this time in June, the GLD has now seen its second-worst ever month-on-month investor outflows against a backdrop of rising gold prices.

US consumer spending “is supported by very constructive household fundamentals,” reckons Canadian bank RBC’s chief US economist Tom Porcelli.

Revisions to end-2016 data today also said US households saved the smallest proportion of income since the eve of the global financial crisis 9 years earlier in October-December.

“I think the market is much more worried about the inflation story [after] buying the Fed’s initial narrative that it was transitory,” said Canadian bank BMO’s US rate strategist Ian Lyngen this week after the US central bank kept rates and QE bond holdings unchanged.

Energy and other commodity prices rose Friday in terms of the weaker US Dollar, but global stock markets fell, extending yesterday’s drop in New York’s tech-heavy Nasdaq index after giant internet retailer Amazon – now accounting for more than two-fifths of all online sales in the US – reported a 77% drop in net income for the April-June quarter, thanks to heavy spending on new categories, countries and video content.

“Gold opened in Asia near the previous session’s high,” says a note from Swiss refining and finance group MKS Pamp’s trading team, “and traded up to 6-week high $1264.”

With Chinese gold prices hitting 1-month highs in Yuan terms, that saw Shanghai traders cut their premium above London quotes to $7 per ounce, MKS says, “and we saw the metal range-bound through the remainder of the day.”

Indian gold discounts below London quotes meantime widened to the largest in 7 months, Reuters reports, with bullion dealers saying the No.2 consumer country’s typically “weak” summer demand has been worsened by the price rise.

“In the local market, prices have [already] risen due to the GST [Goods and Services Tax] and… consumers are not comfortable with the price rise,” the newswire quotes Mukesh Kothari at Mumbai dealer RiddiSiddhi Bullions.

Trading 0.8% higher from last weekend in Dollar terms as New York trade opened Friday morning, gold held dead flat versus the Euro at €1076 per ounce.

The live gold price in Pounds per ounce stood £2 lighter from last Friday at £964.

From 9-year highs hit immediately after Donald Trump’s US presidential election, the Dollar has now lost 3% against the Yuan so far in 2017, and dropped 11% against the single currency Euro.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

TRADING in Comex silver futures contracts was hit Friday by what dealers and analysts called a ‘fat finger’ error, knocking the metal down more than $1 per ounce to a sudden 15-month low at the start of Japanese hours.

GOLD PRICES jumped to new 7-week highs at $1291 per ounce on Tuesday, again testing the 6-year downtrend line in place since the metal’s 2011 record highs as Western stock markets fell with longer-term interest rates.

After the ISM Prices Paid measure of inflation in manufacturing costs “tanked” in Friday’s report for May, 10-year US Treasury yields today fell again to post-Trump election lows of 2.15%.

Crude oil also extended its drop despite the “freezing out” of Qatar by other Gulf states over what Saudi Arabia and now US President Trump call the “funding of radical ideology.”

British police meantime said they and the MI5 security service had one of Saturday night’s 3 suicide-murderers in London Bridge under close surveillance back in 2015, when he appeared on a national TV documentary entitled The Jihadi Next Door.

“Gold is not just for turbulent times, it has been a good source of returns over the last 10, 20 and 30 years,” said former UBS and then Paulson & Co. strategist John Reade, now chief market strategist for the mining-backed World Gold Council, at the Asia Pacific Precious Metals Conference in Singapore.

With 2 days left until the UK’s snap General Election – now forecast to leave the ruling Conservative Party well short of the “landslide victory” previously expected – the British Pound rallied but held 2 cents beneath mid-May’s push to 8-month highs near $1.3050.

That helped the gold price for UK investors rise back above £1000 per ounce – a 3-year high when smashed by gold’s surge on last June’s Brexit referendum result – for the first time since late April.

For Dollar traders, “Resistance comes in at $1295.70 – the April high,” reckons the latest technical analysis from bullion bank Scotia Mocatta’s New York office.

Having hit that level 7 weeks ago, “Gold approaching a multi-year ceiling [now at] $1291…should be a test of character,” says technical analysis from French investment bank Societe Generale, pointing again to what it calls “pivotal trend line resistance in place since the 2011 peak.

“A break past $1291/95 [on gold’s weekly close] would indeed be a game-changer.”

Despite gold’s sharp price rise however, investor interest in the giant SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca:GLD) has barely changed during the $70 gains of the last 4 weeks, keeping the quantity of bullion needed to back the GLD’s shares in issue at 851 tonnes.

The giant iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca:SLV) has meantime shrunk by 1.2% in size since silver prices broke back above $17 per ounce in late May.

Silver today rose to 6-week highs above $17.70 per ounce, gaining almost 10% since 9 May.

Noting the gold ETF holdings “increased modestly on Friday” to reclaim month ago levels, “We are seeing continued interest in the yellow metal from money managers,” says the trading desk at Swiss refiners and finance group MKS.

The number of bullish minus bearish bets in Comex gold futures and options held by the ‘Managed Money’ category last week grew 12%, according to data from US regulators the CFTC, posting its second consecutive week of gains.

That took the Net Spec Long above its 10-year average for only the 6th time in 22 weeks of 2017 to date.

Tuesday saw gold priced in Yuan shoot to its highest since late April above ¥282 per gram even as the Chinese currency surged to a 7-month high against the Dollar amid what analysts called “liquidity tightening” by the Beijing authorities, plus the introduction of a new pricing model for the Yuan’s benchmark FX rate.

Together that cut the premium offered to Shanghai gold imports from the world’s trading hub of London to $7.55 per ounce, the weakest incentive in more than a month.

The Euro in contrast slipped half-a-cent from last week’s new 6-month highs versus the Dollar, helping the gold price for single-currency investors touch € 1150 for the first time since start-May.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

OVERNIGHT gold price gains of almost 1% were halved in London trade Thursday lunchtime as world stock markets ticked higher following yesterday’s new record highs in the US S&P500 index.

The Dollar rallied on the FX market despite what analysts called “cautious” comments on the issue of raising interest rates from the US Federal Reserve’s latest policy-meeting minutes.

After finishing last week at $1255 and trading in a tight 1% range since then, the gold price fell Thursday back to $1255 per ounce – just below its daily average of $1260 since 25 May last year.

Silver in contrast pushed back towards Tuesday’s 3-week highs at $17.30 per ounce, while platinum prices rose towards 1-month highs above $950 per ounce.

“It would seem that the market has looked out of the window and decided that the summer lull is already upon us,” says London broker David Govett at Marex Spectron.

“Boring unfortunately does not really do justice to the recent moves and I see very little changing in the near future.”

Wholesale gold-market trade association the LBMA today launched its new Precious Metals Code, requiring all trading members to sign a commitment to and implementation of its principles in what chairman Paul Fisher – formerly at the Bank of England – called “an important step forward to build greater trust, consistency and transparency throughout the market.”

Launched as an “independent…transparent” and formally-regulated benchmark in 2015, the LBMA Gold Price process has meantime lost the participation of four banks, Reuters reported on Thursday, after administrator IBA – part of the ICE derivatives trading exchange – added a requirement to accept new ICE gold futures contracts before those banks were ready.

Enabling IBA to clear each auction’s final trades centrally through ICE’s systems in New York, this “removes the need for firms to have large bilateral credit lines in place with each other…opens up the auction to a broader cross section of the market and also facilitates greater volume,” the administrators said when adding the requirement in April.

But volumes have fallen sharply since then, as Reuters notes, albeit recovering from April’s 50% plunge on an average daily basis from the IBA auction’s prior average.

Thursday morning’s LBMA Gold Price auction saw 8 direct participants out of a possible 15 find a price of $1257.10 per ounce to balance the greatest volume of buying and selling demand, matching some 56,000 ounces.

“When clearing for the auction was launched last month, four banks – China Construction Bank, UBS, Standard Chartered and Societe Generale – ceased participating,” says Reuters, claiming that “at least one of the four…were among those willing to offer flexible liquidity during the auction, according to…sources.”

Having participants change their orders in response to the auction’s suggested prices was a key feature of the former ‘Gold Fixing’ process running from 1919 until 2015, and described by economists as ‘tatonnement’.

Only one of those four banks, SocGen, is backing ICE competitor the London Metal Exchange’s forthcoming LMEprecious contracts for loco-London futures.

Fellow London bullion market-makers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley remain as LBMA Gold Price participants whilst also backing the LME product – now due sometime in summer 2017 – as does clearing-bank and vault operator ICBC Standard Bank, part of the world’s largest banking group, China-based ICBC.

On 11 April 2017, the day after IBA added the futures contract requirement, the LBMA Gold Price fixed some 0.9% below the mid-point average of bullion market ‘spot’ quotes, where each buyer and seller trades directly with one another in a unique deal – a market structure known as ‘over the counter’ (or OTC) to distinguish it from centrally-cleared exchange-traded contracts.

28 January 2016 saw the similarly new Silver Price auction process settle 7% below spot prices on what participants called “anti-arb compliance” rules, appparently enforced internally by member banks to block their staff from changing their orders or trading other markets during the process – a key feature of the previous Silver Fixing run daily since 1897.

Currently run by US-based derivatives trading exchange the CME together with data and news providers Thomson Reuters, the LBMA Silver Price will go to a replacement provider sometime this summer according to specialist news-site Metal Bulletin, chosen from an apparent shortlist of “two exchanges and one fintech company.”

Gold’s current benchmarking has seen net volumes average some 80,000 ounces since administrators IBA began running the auction in March 2015, greater than the average of fewer than 45,000 ounces recorded over the final week of the previous London Gold Fixing process.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.

GOLD PRICES touched 2-week highs against all major currencies bar the Japanese Yen on Thursday before easing back, extending 2017’s year-to-date gains versus the weakening US Dollar to 9.3% as the scandal around Donald Trump’s sacking of FBI director James Comey deepened again.

Asian and then European stock markets fell hard for a second day after the US Department of Justice named former FBI chief Robert Mueller as ‘special counsel’ to investigate the Trump campaign’s links to Russian officials.

“With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel appointed!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

“This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”

Trump advisors “were in contact” with Russian officials and Kremlin-linked figures at least 18 times during the last 7 months of the 2016 election campaign claims Reuters meantime, citing “current and former US officials familiar with the exchanges.”

“Gold’s haven status refreshed as Trump’s turmoil wounds stocks,” says a headline at Bloomberg.

“[But] if you look at the last year…and all the things that have been going on in the world, gold prices really haven’t done very much,” said commodity data and news agency S&P Global Platts’ chief Martin Fraenkel to CNBC overnight.

With gold peaking above $1264 per ounce on Thursday, “$1295 remains a game-changing level for gold,” says a new technical analysis from French investment and bullion market-making bank Societe Generale, “as it represents the trend line resistance drawn from the all-time high in 2011.”

Gold prices in China rose to 2-week highs at the Shanghai benchmarkings on Thursday, fixing above ¥280 per gram but cutting the Dollar-equivalent premium over London quotes to $8.65 per ounce – below the last 12 months’ average incentive to new imports.

“I think prices have already been pushed up and we might see reversing of gold prices in one or two days,” reckons Hong Kong bullion dealer Ronald Leung at Lee Cheong Gold.

“People are likely to go back to basics and see what the interest rates are going to be.”

With the US Federal Reserve next meeting in mid-June to set short-term interest rates and discuss unwinding the central bank’s $4 trillion of QE bond purchases, new data today put the number of jobless benefits claims at a fresh 3-decade low.

Amid the Trump scandal however, betting on the US Fed’s June meeting now sees just a 55% chance of the central bank raising its key interest rate from the current 1.00% ceiling, according to data from futures trading exchange the CME.

That’s sharply down from yesterday’s 79% odds and the 83% certainty of this time last week.

Longer-term interest rates slipped further on Thursday, with a rise in the price of US Treasury bonds pushing the yield offered by 10-year debt down to 2.20%.

Yields on Eurozone and UK government bonds also fell towards 1-month lows.

The number of shares outstanding in giant gold-backed ETF fund the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca:GLD) hasn’t changed in 7 trading days, despite the price of bullion rising over 3% in Dollar terms.

Giant silver-backed ETF the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca:SLV) also ended Wednesday unchanged in size, despite the metal jumping above $17 per ounce for the first time in 2 weeks.

Disclaimer

This publication is for education purposes only and should not be considered either general of personal advice. It does not consider any particular person’s investment objectives, financial situation or needs. Accordingly, no recommendation (expressed or implied) or other information contained in this report should be acted upon without the appropriateness of that information having regard to those factors. You should assess whether or not the information contained herein is appropriate to your individual financial circumstances and goals before making an investment decision, or seek the help the of a licensed financial adviser. Performance is historical, performance may vary, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. This report was produced in conjunction with ABC Bullion NSW.