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Commodities Corner
Oct. 15, 2010, 2:42 a.m. EDT
View all Commodities Corner "º
"¹ Previous Column
Dr. Copper speaks volumes about emerging markets
First Take "º
Retail sales are no home run
By Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
TOKYO (MarketWatch) "” Not everyone is overly bullish on the precious metals sector and with investor demand becoming an increasingly important and uncertain factor, confidence in the ability for gold and silver to sustain their rallies is starting to buckle under the pressure.
"We remain skeptical concerning precious metals' ability to rise indefinitely, and we expect a turning point to be reached sooner than the consensus in the market," Nic Brown wrote in the Natixis Commodity Markets' Fourth-Quarter Metals Review report.
A bull market in uncertainty suggests gold will keep rising in coming years, although at a slower pace than in recent times. Barron's Clare McKeen reports.
Market consensus is for gold prices to average somewhere in the mid-$1,400s in 2011, but Brown expects prices to average $1,050 through 2011 as a whole.
Gold prices /quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\z10 (GCZ10 1,371, -6.50, -0.47%) finished at $1,377.60 an ounce in New York Thursday to post their 17th record settlement price in a little over five weeks. See Thursday's metals column.
And silver has actually outpaced gold's percentage gains year to date. As of Thursday, gold's up around 26% vs. silver's 45% rise since the end of 2009 and silver stands at a 30-year high.
"Our main concern for the gold market is that investment demand will be insufficient to bridge the widening gap between fundamental sources of demand and supply," Brown, head of commodities research at Natixis, said in an email.
"?Our main concern for the gold market is that investment demand will be insufficient to bridge the widening gap between fundamental sources of demand and supply.'
Nic Brown, Natixis
Weakness in the dollar and concerns over a debasement of global currencies and potential for further quantitative easing among central banks have fueled investment demand for gold so investors now play a more important role.
"The market's ability to sustain higher prices will, therefore, be increasingly reliant upon further buying activity from the investment community, particularly as these higher prices will continue to impact negatively upon demand from jewelry fabricators and other end users," Brown said in the report.
But investment demand may be doomed to decline, if Natixis' positive outlook for the global economy proves true, real interest rates move out of negative territory and traditional investments start generating more attractive returns, Brown said.
Under those circumstances, "the risk is that any decline in prices could quickly become self-reinforcing if current holders of gold become net sellers, as prices would need to fall substantially before fundamental demand and supply could be brought back into balance," he said.
He was hesitant to put a precise number or timeline on such an outcome, but pointed out that if he's correct in thinking that gold prices won't be able to hold onto their current lofty levels, "this will certainly impact upon other precious metal prices as well," making silver vulnerable to decline.
It's difficult for anyone to predict when precious metals prices will take a dive, especially given what it took to get the metals to their elevated levels.
"A near-perfect storm of bullish fundamentals and the arrival of momentum players has given gold and silver a one-two punch not seen since both metals started free trading in the early 70s," said Peter Grandich, editor of the Grandich Letter, who expects to see gold prices at $2,000-plus before the rally is over.
/quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\z10 GCZ10 1,371, -6.50, -0.47% /quotes/comstock/21e!f1:si\z10 SIZ10 2,428, -15.50, -0.63%
And the majority of analysts still expect further gains.
Page 1Page 2 Add Comment › · Recommend (4) · Post: Alert Email Print More Commodities Corner Oct. 8, 2010 Dr. Copper speaks volumes about emerging markets Oct. 1, 2010 China's not a superpower in commodities markets Sept. 24, 2010 All's quiet, but never dull on the oil front Sept. 17, 2010 Rise in gold sector M&A raises eyebrows Sept. 10, 2010 China sets sights on potash; investors take notice Explore related topics Europe Gold - 100 Oz (Comex) SILVER 5000 DEC0 SPDR Gold Trust ETF iShares COMEX Gold Trust ETFS Gold Trust Comments Screener About Myra SaefongMyra P. Saefong is our assistant global markets editor based in Tokyo. She has been with MarketWatch since 1998 and holds a master's degree in English literature.
First Take Retail sales are no home runSales showed improvement in September, but it's a little too soon to uncork the bubbly.
11:48 a.m. Today11:48 a.m. Oct. 15, 2010 | Comments: 12
Most Popular Most readMost commented Gold and silver may start to buckle under pressure U.S. futures rise after Bernanke, data Bernanke makes case for further cautious easing Recession is tragedy for young, almost-old The housing crisis in 1933, and today U.S. stocks stall after jobless report Mortgage jitters hurt bank stocks Banks down sharply for second day Don't judge a 'book' by its cover Bernanke makes case for cautious easing Reader Response »- Bastiat | 1:47 a.m. Today1:47 a.m. Oct. 15, 2010
+39 Votes (43 Up / 4 Down) Find a Broker Partner Center » MktwSaefong's Latest Tweets"Gold and silver may start to buckle under pressure http://on.mktw.net/aeCJVo" 3:22 a.m. EDT, Oct. 15, 2010 from MktwSaefong
"Gold's gaining again on Globex with Dec. #gold up $4.20 at $1,381.80. Right now, it's trading over $36 higher for the week." 1:21 a.m. EDT, Oct. 15, 2010 from MktwSaefong
"Dec. #gold hits a fresh high near $1,390/oz and Nov. #crude reaches an intraday high above $84/bbl on Globex as the #dollar sinks." 2:55 a.m. EDT, Oct. 14, 2010 from MktwSaefong
"U.S. #dollar weakens against the #euro and Japanese #yen. http://bit.ly/afzyBk" 8:59 p.m. EDT, Oct. 13, 2010 from MktwSaefong
"Gold futures near $1,380 an ounce on Globex. http://bit.ly/aY71iS" 8:58 p.m. EDT, Oct. 13, 2010 from MktwSaefong
/quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\z10 Gold - 100 Oz (Comex) (GCZ10) /marketstate/country/US The market is open1:05:44 pm The market is closed1:05:44 pm $ 1,371 Change -6.50 -0.47% Volume 162,717 Real time quotes var embeddedchart17697829Chart = new EmbeddedChart('#embeddedchart17697829', NormalChartStyleNoDecimals, 190, 90, '1dy', '5mi', null, null, null, 'US:GCZ10'); jQuery.data($('#embeddedchart17697829').get(0), 'embeddedchart', embeddedchart17697829Chart); Add to portfolio GCZ10 Find a Broker Create alert Featured Commentary » Next: Rex NuttingMoney and Power
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Myra P. Saefong Precious metals may buckle As investor demand becomes more important to how gold and silver perform, confidence in the metals' rally is starting to fade. /conga/kiosk/wildcard3.html 105685 MarketWatch.com Site Index Topics Help Feedback Newsroom Roster Media Archive Premium Products Mobile Podcasts RSS MarketWatch on Facebook MarketWatch on Twitter Company Info Code of Conduct Corrections Advertising Media Kit Advertise Locally License our Content WSJ.com Barron's Online BigCharts Virtual Stock Exchange All Things Digital MarketWatch Community Financial News Online WSJ.com Small Business FINS.com - Propel your careerCopyright © 2010 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
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