Hedge funds’ bullish bets on gold jump to four-year high
Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their net-long position in gold.
The gold price fell by as much as $179 an ounce in late trade on Monday to a fresh 27-month low.
June gold tried to regain some of its footing through the day, settling at $1,361 but in after hours – following a similar pattern to Friday’s post-regular session trading – plunged to a new low for the day of $1,322 an ounce by 9pm EST.
The last time gold traded at this level was in January 2011 and constitutes an almost 12% retreat from Friday’s close of $1,501.
The two day decline – gold ended Friday $88 down – is the worst during gold’s 12-year bull run, but in February 1983, the yellow metal fell from $475 to $408.50 over two days, a 14% decline. That is still in percentage terms the biggest one day drop for the metal.
The gold price is down more than 18.7% this year and Friday’s sharp decline dragged the metal it into official bear territory, defined as a 20% decline from a high.
Gold hit a record $1,909 an ounce intra-day on 23 August 2011, but a the next day suffered one of few triple digit one-day losses when it plummeted $105, ending the week down more than 10% from the all-time high.
Adjusting for inflation, gold’s highest price point ever was on January 21, 1980 when the precious metal hit $850 only to plunge the very next day to $737.50, a 13% fall.
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