Friday, 20-April-2007
Gold was fairly quiet on Tocom today, trading within a narrow $683.50/685.75 range. During the European hours everybody seemed to have forgottenthe ten dollar drop of yesterday, with fresh options-related buying by a USbank propelling the yellow metal higher.
The rally in PGM’s also supportedthe market. Platinum and palladium jumped to $1327 and 385 respectively onthe second ETF announcement this week. ETF Securities will launch five newphysically backed exchange-traded commodities to be listed on the LondonStock Exchange April 24th and it will be physically allocated. A newseries of exchange traded funds (ETFs) listed will be platinum, palladium,gold, silver and a basket of four weighted towards silver. The preciousmetal fixed at $687.60 on the first London fixing, up only 35 cents fromthe previous AM one and then continued its way on the upside. This one waystreet ended after prices hit $693.80 per ounce about an hour after theopening of the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Themarket could not hold on to all the gains and retreated slightly, butremained hovering above $690 for the rest of the NY trading session. We believe that as soon as the $680 level holds gold has an upsidepotential, supported by the US dollar at multiyear lows, firm PGM’s andstable crude. In the coming week, on Wednesday the 25th, Iran’s topnegotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will meetfor talks on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activity. This will be their firstmeeting since the UN Security Council widened sanctions on Iran over itsrefusal to stop enriching uranium last month. The return to talks reflectsa continued EU wish to find a compromise and avoid spiraling intoconfrontation with a major oil supplier. Some Western diplomats howeverbelieve that Iran is using talks only to stall for time to master complexenrichment technology. Washington also says that it is dedicated to adiplomatic solution, but does not rule out military action as a lastresort. Next week the following US economic data will be awaited: consumerconfidence and existing home sales on Tuesday, durable goods and new homesales on Wednesday, initial jobless claims on Thursday, and finally GDPindex/prices on Friday.
Silver was calm in the Far East, trading in a narrow range above$13.70. During the European hours the white metal experienced an ongoingascent which took the prices all the way up to $13.97 by the opening of theComex session. Spot then gave away some of the intraday gains, but remainedhovering firmly above the $13.90 level until the close. We believe thatrange trading will prevail for the short term with $14 providing the firstresistance and $13.80 a support.
MKS Gold & Silver, Daily Report
By Lidia Nazarova
Disclaimer
