Gold futures rose slightly on Friday; while gold traders’ sentiment this month was bearish with the yellow metal heading towards the biggest monthly fall since June and first annual fall since 2000 on speculation that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will begin to taper its stimulus soon.
Gold Futures for February delivery climbed 0.74% higher on the New York Mercantile Exchange, standing at $1,247.10 an ounce as of 8:29am GMT, while Silver futures gained 1.36%, settling at $19.96 an ounce at the same time. The yellow metal lost more than 5% in November and dropped more than 25% this year, which will mark its first annual fall since 2000.
Metal traders continue to worry over the ongoing speculations over the possibility that the Federal Reserve could begin to scale-back on its quantitative easing program soon as the US economy is showing signs of an improvement. Minutes from the Federal Reserve signaled that the US central bank policy-makers expect the tapering to starts as soon as December.
Holdings in the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, came in at 843.21 tones on Thursday, dropping to its lowest level since January 2009. The loss in outflows since the beginning of this year reached 450.
Last week, Hedge-fund Manager John Paulson, said he personally wouldn’t invest more money into his gold fund due to the inflation possibly accelerating.
The US dollar index, which measures the strength of the US dollar against six major currencies, eased 0.09% to 80.511 points.
The US markets were close on Thursday due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Gold Prices – China Demand
According to a government data released, gold imported from China reached 129.9 metric tons in October, the second highest on record; compared to 109.4 tons recorded in the previous month. China consumer demand reached 955.9 tons in the first ten months this year, doubling the amount seen in the previous year.
Analysts’ forecasted approximately 3.6 tons of gold were bought on the Shanghai Gold Exchange on Friday.
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