The John Brimelow Report
Gold is rallying in Euros; Two important AS ideas
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Indian ex-duty premiums: AM $8.39, PM $8.29, with world gold at $422.70 and $421.55. Very ample for legal imports.
PM silver in India, by which time world silver was down to $6.53, had an ex-duty premium of 46c. Premiums in the upper 40s in the first week of this year triggered the air freighting of metal to India, a very rare event. Silver’s downside would seem to be limited.
Reuters comments from the Far East today diverged unusually widely from the subsequent market tone
"SINGAPORE, Jan 20 (Reuters) -Investor buying at lower levels helped gold defy a firming dollar on Thursday and could boost its chances of breaking free from the current $421 to $424 an ounce range, dealers said.
"I think there are physical buyers getting in at these levels...just under $423," said one dealer in Singapore.."
TOKYO, Jan 20 (Reuters) –"… prices were supported by bargain-hunting… "We saw a lot of buying when gold fell to near 1,380 yen so we are not too worried about seeing it fall sharply from the present level," said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, associate director at Nihon Unicom Corp.'s research section."
TOCOM is fact only traded the equivalent of 13,924 Comex lots (-5%). The active contract closed down 2 yen, but world gold went out 40c above NY. Open interest rose 768 Comex equivalent lots. Mitsubishi implies that the public increased their long by 2.1 tonnes. Quite possibly the key element in Japan at present is quiet buying of physical at 6-month low yen prices. (NY yesterday traded 46,054 lots. Open interest rose 414 lots.)
Yesterday, elements in NY tried to utilize a rally in the Euro to boost gold: running it up $2 in the first 30 minutes, $3.60 above the previous NY close. Whatever they encountered there completely demoralized them, and Refco Research too, which sold its’ 421 Feb gold long of the past week – bought with a $432 objective - on today’s opening. It appears the 100-day moving average has a formidable guardian in NY.
Nevertheless, gold in Euro terms has being resolutely edging up all week, in sharp contrast to the soggy performance since late November. Of course the primary physical buyer currencies are either fixed to the dollar – the Gulf – or independently firm (India) so were the Euro to soften this action would be to be expected, contrary perhaps to conventional commentary.
JB