Gold underlined its unattractiveness for investors on Friday and last week.
Amid all the concerns about Greece, the eurozone and the stockmarket rally and rout in China, gold has not regained favour with nervous investors.
Friday saw Comex gold futures end a rough week at their lowest level in more than five years, amid reports of a sell-off by a large trader on Comex.
Not even news that China had revealed the size of its gold holdings for the first time since 2009 could spark a rally in the metal.
China said it had bought 604 tonnes of gold since 2009, or around 100 tonnes a year.
Some analysts felt that was too small a figure and disputed the total gold holding provided by China of 1,658 tonnes, compared with the figure in April 2009 of 1,054 tonnes.
Many analysts reckon China has been a bigger buyer.
But the rise also reflects rising production and the fact that China is now the world’s biggest gold producer, producing 450 tonnes in 2014.
Not helping the metal and other commodities was a very strong day for the US dollar which jumped to just over $US1.08 to the euro, while the Aussie dollar slid under 74 US cents and closed at near five year lows around 73.70.
August gold futures on Comex lost $US12, or 1.1%, to settle at $1,131.90 an ounce for the Comex session. It lost about 2.3% for the week.
It was the seventh successive daily fall for the metal.
The weakness in gold is hurting the prices of leading miners (which will again see the likes of Newcrest hit later today on the ASX).
In Canada, shares in Barrick Gold, the world’s largest miner, hit a 24-year-low on Friday night thanks to the continuing slide in the price of the precious metal.
Gold-focused Exchange Traded Funds also had a bad week and day on Friday.
Comex September silver was also weak, falling 15 US cents on Friday, or 1%, to $US14.834 an ounce, for a 4.2% weekly loss.
Elsewhere the price of copper fell last week on Comex, closing 1.1% lower on Friday night at $US2.496 a pound. That was a fall of 1.6% for the week.
And the solid dollar took its toll in the oil market, losing nearly 4% in New York last week for US style crude.
News of the first fall in oil rig use in the US for three weeks supported oil prices, but couldn’t wipe out early losses completely.
So August West Texas Intermediate crude futures shed 2 cents to settle at $US50.89 a barrel in New York.
Prices reached their lowest settlement since early April and were down 3.5% over the week.
In London September Brent crude rose 18 US cents, or 0.3%, to $US57.10 a barrel. For the week, the contract lost around 3.2%.
Baker Hughes reported a weekly decline in the number of active US oil rigs which fell 7 to a total of 638 as of Friday. Traders are now waiting to see what impact the Iranian nuclear agreement has on oil supplies in the next month or two.
