China

FastMarkets March 19th, 2014

Precious metals prices continued to consolidate on Tuesday with the complex pulling back by an average of 1.6 percent at the day’s lows, with the silver price down 2.6% at $20.62, while gold dropped to a low of $1,350.65. By the close they were down an average of 0.9 percent with the gold price finishing at $1,355.65 and silver at $20.82. The PGMs closed down around 0.6 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures on Thursday settled with a modest gain, as a pullback in U.S. equities helped provide some investment appeal for the precious metal.

Pressure remained on copper prices after a batch of downbeat China data.

Gold for April delivery GCJ4 +0.18%   rose $1.90, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,372.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices tallied their four-straight session gain and held their ground at a six-month closing high.

Wall Street Journal, Money Beat

China’s buying of gold jewelry, coins and bars is now the biggest driver of prices, not investment demand from the West, according to HSBCHSBA.LN +1.46% Global Research.

“We would argue that physical demand trends in the emerging world will largely define gold’s price movements this year,” HSBC analysts James Steel and Howard Wen said in a research note.

Published: Thursday, 14 Feb 2013 | 1:00 AM ET
By: Ansuya Harjani
Assistant Producer, CNBC Asia

Central banks scooped up more gold in 2012 than they have annually in nearly half a century as they sought to diversify reserves, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.

Precious metals gained on renewed hopes of a Greece resolution as Greece's lenders have decided on new ways to reduce its massive debt.