Gold slips, Dollar gains

In India, domestic prices hit an all-time high of 80,034 ($927.69) rupees per 10 grams on Friday, tracking the international spot gold prices and hovering near a record high of $2,790.15 hit on Oct. 31.

“Retail demand was negligible this week due to the price rise. Most jewellery stores were witnessing thin footfall,” a Chennai-based bullion dealer said.

Chinese gold prices are higher again and close to historical highs, which has sucked out demand but some people are still buying due to the holiday season starting next week, said a mainland China-based precious metal trader.

Source – Reuters

Barrick Gold will resume operations at its shuttered Loulo-Gounkoto mine in Mali once authorities in the country allow it to resume gold shipments, CEO Mark Bristow said on Wednesday.

“We will start the operations as soon as we get approval to ship the gold and we need to ship the gold to pay anything to the government,” Bristow said, adding that Barrick paid $460 million to the Mali government last year.

“So if you calculate that to per week… and every week we don’t do this it hurts everyone,” he added.

Source – Reuters

Australia has not escaped the threat of increased tariffs on its exports to the U.S., but it does have one world-class industry which is reveling in commodity market confusion, gold.

Both Citi and RBC Capital Markets see the gold price continuing to rise while the Resources Department of the Australian Government is forecasting an increase in national output from 286 tons this year to 309 tons next year, cementing Australia’s position as the world’s third biggest gold producer after Russia and China.

Gold’s rise in U.S. dollars is magnified in Australia by the currency effect with an exchange current rate of US63 cents delivering an Australian gold price of A$4903/oz, a record which easily eclipses all earlier gold booms.

Source – Forbes

Spot gold fell 0.1% to $2,916.75 an ounce as of 11:55 a.m. ET (1655 GMT), after rising in the last three sessions. U.S. gold futures were flat at $2,925.

“We are just seeing some mild profit-taking pressure from recent gains, the underlying fundamentals are still bullish… Another thing that’s putting some mild pressure on the gold market is a rise in bond yields,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior market analyst at Kitco Metals.

The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit a more than one-week high, reducing the appeal of non-yielding gold.

Spot silver dipped 0.2% to $32.70 an ounce, palladium was steady at $942.25 and platinum was down 0.3% at $966.63.

Source – Reuters

“We’re going to need to see continued progress on inflation in order to bring back those interest rate cut expectations,” said Phillip Streible, chief market strategist at Blue Line Futures.

“People are a little bit nervous, and they want to be cautious going into CPI tomorrow,” he added.

Source – Reuters