Metal prices fell last week, lead by gold, silver and copper, but watch gold after figures emerged at the weekend suggesting that big investors have established major short positions in the metal.
While Comex gold prices settled slightly higher on Friday at $US1,184.20 an ounce in New York, the metal ended the week down 2.9%, the largest such drop since early May of last year.
The September contract settled Thursday at $US1,184, the lowest since early January of 2017. It is now down more than 9% so far this year.
Comex September silver lost 0.6% to $US14.631 an ounce, for a weekly decline of 4.3%.
Comex copper saw its September contract inch up by 0.5% to $2.629 a pound on Friday, but still finished about 4.1% lower for the week.
Meanwhile on the London metal Exchange copper prices fell by close to 5% over the week, ending 0.2% lower on Friday at $US5,927 a tonne. That was its largest weekly fall since early July, Copper hit a four and a half year peak on June 7 of $US7,348 a tonne on the LME.
Not helping copper was the disappearance of fears that a labour dispute at the huge Escondida mine might start.
But it seems both sides – the union and BHP want to keep on talking.
Meanwhile the Financial Times reported that bears are now dominant in gold.
“Traders have increased their bets against gold, with speculative positions in futures on the precious metal the most bearish in 17 years, according to government data released on Friday,” the FT reported.
“Although it enjoyed a bounce on Friday, fresh data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission indicates that some investors think gold’s descent has further to go.
“The net positioning of “non-commercial” players in the gold futures market — a CFTC classification that includes hedge funds, asset managers and trading groups — has fallen into negative territory for the first time since the end of 2001,” the FT reported.
Gold bulls reckon this is good news because it indicates the bottom is near. But realistic analysts point out that gold has lost its image as a ’safe haven’ this year with all the talk of tension in Turkey and emerging currencies, trade wars between the US and EU and the growing instability of the Trump Administration.
