Informist, Thursday, Feb 8, 2024
By Sandeep Sinha
MUMBAI – Futures contracts of gold were flat on the Multi Commodity Exchange of India and COMEX as the dollar was steady ahead of the US jobless claims. Investors will also take cues from a speech by Federal Open Market Committee member Thomas Barkin later today.
Analysts polled by Dow Jones had estimated the jobless claims to come in at 220,000, down by 4,000 from last week. The dollar index, which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was flat at 104.08.
The upside in GOLD was limited by an outflow in gold exchange-traded funds as investors pulled money out of safe-haven assets in search of returns. On Wednesday, gold holdings with the SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, fell by 5.47 tn to 842.22 tn. The fund has a market value of $55.26 bln.
The downside in gold was restricted by continued buying by the People’s Bank of China. The Chinese central bank bought the yellow metal for the 15th successive month in January. China’s gold reserves rose by 10 tn to 2,245.4 tn last month.
“The markets are likely to remain stuck until traders and investors get a better understanding about the timing, pace, and depth of future US rate cuts,” Reliance Securities said in a note.
The spot gold-silver ratio, also known as the Mint Ratio, was lower at 90.84 to 1, which indicates that silver had outperformed gold. The ratio measures the ounces of silver required to buy an ounce of gold.
SILVER prices traded slightly higher because of short-covering and positive cues from COMEX.
MCX Bulldex, an index tracking the real-time performance of gold and silver futures on the MCX, was down just 7 points at 16038 points.
At 1630 IST, the April and June gold contracts recorded turnovers of 9.66 bln rupees and 634.04 mln rupees, respectively. At the same time, the March and May silver contracts saw turnovers of 9.63 bln rupees and 1.84 bln rupees, respectively.
* At 1630 IST, the following were the most-active contracts of bullion:
–April gold was flat at 62,500 rupees per 10 gm on MCX
–April gold was flat at $2,051.30 an ounce on COMEX
–March silver was up 0.1% at 70,370 rupees per kg on MCX
–-March silver was up 0.5% at $22.69 an ounce on COMEX
* Outlook for the rest of the session:
–MCX gold seen at 62,180–62,840 rupees per 10 gm
–COMEX gold seen at $2,040.0–$2,070.0 an ounce
–MCX silver seen at 69,550-71,220 rupees per kg
–COMEX silver seen at $22.45-$22.90 an ounce
End
US$1 = 82.96 rupees
IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT
Edited by Rajeev Pai
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