uesday February 20, 10:43 am Eastern Time
Gold dips to 17-mo lows, PGMs up as quotas delayed
LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Platinum group metals (PGMs) ticked up, but only slightly, during European trade on Tuesday, shrugging off news from Russia that signing of export quotas would be delayed indefinitely.
Gold dipped to new 17-month lows on the fix -- erasing lows already set last week -- as U.S. players returned to the market after a public holiday and funds began selling.
The PGMs moved up a few dollars after Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a Ministry of Finance source saying PGM export quota signing would be put on hold.
``It's not really a surprise coming from them (Russians). The market never believes the metal is coming until it's arrived so the quota-signing also wasn't going to be believed until it happened,'' said one trader.
The Russian government has to approve the draft of a decree granting the quotas on exports of PGMs before they are signed by President Vladimir Putin.
Of the four Russian platinum group metal holders -- Norilsk Nickel , state precious metals and gems repository Gokhran, the Central Bank and Vneshtorgbank -- only Norilsk has a 10-year export quota for palladium.
The others negotiate all export quotas on a yearly basis, while Norilsk must renegotiate platinum and rhodium quotas.
After Putin signs the export quota decree, the holders of metals still have to obtain licences before they can export through the country's sole agency, Almazjuvelirexport.
By 1540 GMT platinum was at $603.50/$609.50 from $599.00/$605.00 while palladium was quoted at $967.00/$987.00 versus $959.00/$989.00.
``Platinum and palladium have faced some sustained selling from a number of sources and yet support at $590 and $975 respectively held firm, suggesting that this market is pretty solidly underpinned,'' said analyst Ross Norman at thebulliondesk.com.
``We are told that a U.S. Hedge Fund also entered the fray on the short side and again their selling was readily absorbed by eager buying from a U.S. fabricator. I think we can draw from this that the PGMs have scope to move higher.''
GOLD DIPS TO 17-MONTH TROUGH AMID U.S. FUND SALES
Elsewhere in precious metals, gold softened amid selling from U.S. funds which returned to the arena after Monday's public holiday.
In the afternoon fix it set a price of $256.25 a troy ounce -- the lowest fix since September 21, 1999.
By 1540 GMT spot metal was trading down at $256.50/$257.00, off session lows but still sharply down from Monday's European close of $259.40/$259.90.
The gold forward curve remains tight with continued borrowing particularly in the one- to six-month area, traders said, resulting in the highest short-term gold lease rates since January 2000. One month gold was around 1.08 percent, compared with 0.2 percent exactly one year ago.
Silver was seeing little interest, falling in line with gold's slip, to last quote at $4.48/$4.50 from $4.50/$4.52.
biz.yahoo.com |
