Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Source: Kitco Metals Live Charts.
Gold prices were mostly trading in negative territory Wednesday morning in the U.S. amid light volumes and weak oil prices.
February delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was last down $6.60 or 0.6% to $1,061.40 per ounce. Trade has ranged from $1,060.10 to $1,071.50.
The precious metal had finished lower on Tuesday, after strong U.S. consumer confidence data bolstered the case for the Federal Reserve to raise rates at a faster clip. Gold, which does not yield interest to its holders, struggles to compete with other investments when borrowing costs rise.
Those two factors, a strong dollar and rising U.S. interest rates, are expected to weigh on gold next year. With gold prices down roughly 10%, the precious metal is on track to record its third-straight annual loss, the first time it has posted a triple-loss streak since 1998.
Gold probably will end the year somewhere between $1,060 and $1,085, Alex Thorndike, senior precious metals dealer with MKS (Switzerland) SA, told Kitco News:
“We are still cautious of choppy and illiquid conditions as there is very little depth in this market at present and could be subject to being pushed around,” he said. “We suspect we will see an accumulation of interest next week with January historically being generally a positive month for gold. So for now we look to buy dips.”
Among the other precious metals, spot silver was down 0.57% at $13.88 an ounce and spot platinum fell 0.19% at $887.27 an ounce, while palladium was up 0.04% at $554.00 an ounce.
2 Comments
Bill Nicholson
When i lived in Elko Nevada in 1990 the scuttlebutt around the mining community,was mining gold would not really pick up again till $ 400.00 an ounce was reality;Now ,GOLD is so overpriced I would not even think about buying in,it’s to far down to reach a reasonable price level
Rod B
If you look at gold priced in CAN$, Euro$, China$, MEX$ and other counties’ currencies, you will see that gold is not down, but it is up anywhere from a few % to +6% over the past year for the CAN$ (vs. down almost 11% for the US$). The relative strength of the US$ is THE issue…so go figure… what will happen when the US cannot export its few manufactured goods?
The Western economies are well into a deflationary spiral that has been relatively flat since the FED has been buyer of debt, but could change to a steep spiral down.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with $1,000 gold price. The problem is the MBA bean counters want dollars instead of gold for a return on mining. That will probably change in the not-too-distant future, as MBAs may become about as cheap as US dollars.