Silver Market Morning

Gold Today –New York closed at $1,198.80 up $15 with Asia lifting it just over $1,200. The Fix saw the gold price set at $1,199.25 up $12.75 and in the euro, at €986.550 up €10.007 while the euro was barely changed at $1.2156. Ahead of New York’s opening gold was trading in London at $1,197.80 and in the euro at €985.56.

Silver Today – The silver price was at $16.27 up 50 cents. Ahead of New York’s opening it was trading at $16.10.

Gold _{(very short-term)} The gold price will consolidate, in New York, today.

Silver _{(very short-term)} The silver price will consolidate, in New York today.

Price Drivers

New York saw short positions closed with the gold price rising to $1,206 at one point, before settling back to consolidate at $1,200 once more. There were sales of 1.494 tonnes from the SPDR gold ETF but no change in the Gold Trust yesterday, but this did nothing to slow the recovery of the gold price over $1,200. The holdings of the SPDR gold ETF are at 710.808 and at 161.73 tonnes in the Gold Trust. We expect trading ranges to narrow today, the last day of 2014, as we move forward to the point where the gold and silver prices make strong moves into the New Year. What is of note is the strength of gold in the euro at €985.

We expect 2015 to be the first of the next few years of consequences. [Subscribe to www.GoldForecaster.com & www.SilverForecaster.com]

We may well see a Fixing or similar established in Shanghai as that market matures and becomes the center of gold trading, overtaking but partnering with London in a 24-hour gold market. It will likely, also be a year when arbitrageurs between the two centers will smooth out the premiums between east and west giving us a global price all the time.

Just a word on yesterday’s commentary, where we said that, “New York is losing its influence over the gold price.” While New York and London have highly developed markets where traders can move prices around very quickly and make them react in the short-term to most pieces of news, the physical demand for gold has risen to the point where marginal supplies of gold are also being absorbed by the east. This is making it difficult for traders to move physical gold in sufficient amounts to move prices. The physical amounts of gold available for trading the gold price have dropped dramatically in the last two years leaving physical demand for the east reaching in to take most of that stock as well. Consequently, just as oversupply in the oil market has crushed the influence of marginal supplies to dominate prices, so ‘over-demand’ is doing the same in the gold market. Some will retort that COMEX dominates gold prices due the huge volumes traded there. We again point out that COMEX trades paper and is essentially a financial market and only trades around 5% of its contracts in physical gold that will be delivered. . COMEX traders need to trigger real physical sales or purchases to back up their ‘paper’ transactions to move gold prices. If there are no deliveries of gold on COMEX there can be no impact of COMEX on the gold price. 95%+ of gold contracts on COMEX are closed out before a physical delivery of gold happens.

Silver– The silver price is as quick to recover as it is to fall. twww.SilverForecaster.com

Regards,

Julian D.W. Phillips for the Gold & Silver Forecasters