Silver Market Morning

Gold Today –New York closed at $1,171.00 up $22.50 with Asia taking it down to $1,168 before London opened. Today is a historic day as it sees the last gold and silver “Fixings”, a process that began in 1919. Tomorrow will see the twice daily LBMA Gold Price replacing it.

The penultimate Fix was set at $1,164.00, up $15.00 and in the euro, at €1,091.523 up 80.497, up €11.026, while the euro was slightly better at $1.0664. Ahead of New York’s opening, gold was trading in London at $1,164.90 and in the euro at €1,089.56.

Silver Today – The silver price closed at $16.06 up 50 cents. Ahead of New York’s opening it was trading at $15.88.

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

There were purchases of 1.791 tonnes of gold into the SPDR gold ETF but no movement was seen in the holdings of the Gold Trust on Wednesday. The holdings of the SPDR gold ETF are at 749.774 tonnes and at 164.02 tonnes in the Gold Trust. The purchase was not, of itself, sufficient to cause the gold price to rise, but the accompanying short covering as the dollar index dropped to 98.81 and to over $1.07 against the euro, were.

Speculators were given quite a fright as they misread the Fed, the dollar and the state of the gold market. With traders and speculators in command of the U.S. gold market, while Asia continues to buy all available volume of gold offered, short covering drove the gold price as high as $1,182 at one point in the U.S., but the market then settled down to close at $1,171. This was the strong move that we were expecting. Now the gold market must digest the Fed’s words and the likelihood of the a longer wait before rate hikes happen, at a glacial pace, and in small rises, until inflation is confirming it will reach 2% in the medium term. This is positive for gold as it does indicate that the dollar’s rise will falter.

It is clear that the Fed is unhappy with financial market’s propensity to take small changes in wording as a definitive indication that rates will rise on a certain date. Janet Yellen, made it clear that the timing of rate rises will be ‘data driven’ as they have not decided when they will raise rates. A major concern of the Fed is the volatility caused by financial market’s determination to translate every word into impending action. Nevertheless, financial markets and commentators will not change. Hence, the Fed will wait longer than needs be before acting as this will cause the least disruption to the U.S. economy and financial markets. It is possible that the Fed will act anytime between June and next year on rates, a positive for gold and silver.

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Silver– As the silver price continues to be treated as a monetary metal like gold, it ran up with gold. This pattern will continue.

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Regards,

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