Germany Chancellor plans lithium deal with Serbia after Rio ruling
Olaf Scholz plans to visit Serbia this week to secure supplies of lithium that are critical for the nation’s energy transition and auto industry.
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.
2 Comments
Almost_back
What choices there are for investors. Government bonds at less than present inflation returns. Money market funds that yield one per cent. Dividend stocks that pay 5 percent or so but the risk of losing 20 percent in equity value any day is more than possible. The safe haven is supposedly the currency of an insolvent country. Politicians everywhere are exposed as self-serving ditherers who have no answers since they can’t figure out exactly
what is the question.
Ed233
The technical s for gold have been suggesting a correction since early august and that the gold would go back into the 1500’s to fill a gap that was evident on the charts. This re-tracement was predicted by several gold writers. While consolidation is now taking place much of the smart money appears to be buying gold here. The reasons are quite simple.The world gold council reports that the European Central Banks have turned from net sellers to net buyers. In fact the CBGA has only sold 1.1 tonnes of gold during the year, clearly an unwillingness to sell their holdings. Secondly, the amount of supply coming onto the open market is dwindling from previous years and this alone is enough to push prices higher without the speculators who are now sitting on the side lines waiting for the appropriate time. Hold on to precious metals the window of opportunity will eventually close. LOL Looking after your money. Disclosure: holding precious metals