Gold hammered again despite talk of $2.5 trillion Europe bailout

AMB’s golden parachute

Gold for December delivery dropped $40, or 2.5%, to just under the $1,600 an ounce level in midday trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday, but had recovered from sharp losses which saw the metal reach a low of $1,535 shortly after the open. Talk that a bailout for the Eurozone could top 2 trillion euros failed to boost the demand for gold as an inflation hedge.

Gold has now declined more than $300 since setting an intraday record of $1,923.10/oz in the second week of September, but is well clear of its year low of just under $1,300/oz and most analysts remain positive about gold’s long term trend.

MarketWatch quotes Adrian Ash, head of research at BullionVault.com: “Short term, there’s clear demand destruction in gold derivatives right now.” But Ash added: “It’s hard to see this drop as the end of gold’s 10-year bull market because everything else looks just as bad today as it did last month.”

Reuters quotes Citigroup analyst Jon Bergteil: “Backing off away from $2,000 under the weight of those issues [sovereign risk] have not really at the moment led to an immediate long term sell-off. What we will require for that is for people to stop worrying about sovereign risk, that they come to the conclusion that the world is going to grow very nicely and we will not face these pot holes.”

After hitting a low of $26.15 – levels last seen in January – at the open December silver had turned positive by noon and managed to trade on the positive side of $30/oz.

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