Gold is Dead and The Dollar is King: Keep on Dreamin! Jul 19, 16:31
NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) - New York precious metals closed mostly lower Monday, with gold shrugging off losses in the dollar and edging lower with shorts standing pat amid bearish sentiment.
The dollar took a hit against both the euro and the yen amid rumors of intervention on the part of the Fed, Bundesbank and European Central Bank. Gold, which has in the past been considered a safe haven investment tool, failed to benefit.
COMEX August gold settled at $253.80 an ounce, down 60 cents, after trading between $253.70 and $255.00. Spot bullion was quoted at $253.00/50, versus the late fix at $253.95 and Thursday's New York close at $255.30/80.
CFTC's commitments of traders showed a 158-lot increase in the net-speculative short position to 81,234 lots as of July 13.
Gold prices have on an unyielding slide for months on the back of expected gold sales by the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund and, starting next year, the Swiss National Bank.
"In order for a rally to occur something has to trigger it," said Tim Evans, an analyst with Pegasus Econometric Group. "We can't guess at when a bullish fundamental shock might occur, so there's no point in buying in anticipation of a news development.
"That leaves the market in a well established downtrend with fresh lows possible off each new tranche of central bank selling," he added. "The market seems to be determined to find out if prices can drop to a level where the banks just decide it's not worth it. Once the physical long liquidation has been completely accomplished there may be shot at a rally that actually qualifies as a bull market, but we're not there yet."
Meanwhile, South Africa's Harmony Gold chief executive officer Bernard Swanepoel predicted a shakeout of the gold industry. "I've got no doubt that it (the weak gold price) will speed up the South African leg and the international producers have no place to hide any more," he said.
At these prices, 45 percent of the world's gold output is unprofitable and Swanepoel predicted "some (companies) may be forced to throw in the towel."
COMEX September silver settled at $5.07 an ounce, down 3.5 cents, after trading between $5.065 and $5.11. Spot silver was last quoted at $5.04/07 cents compared with the fix at $5.05 and the previous close at $5.07/10.
NYMEX October platinum settled at $351.00 an ounce, up $2.00, while September palladium closed down 60 cents at $337.00 an ounce.
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