Gold futures jumped almost 2% on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, breaking above the key $1,200-per-ounce level, as traders used a weaker dollar Tuesday as an excuse to buy. Worries about Greece’s election outcome and tensions between Russia and the West also sent buyers into the metal. The dollar index was down 0.2% to 90.26.
Markets monitored developments in Moscow, where there were arrests following a rally by several thousand people protesting the conviction of Kremlin critic Alexiei Navalny and his brother.
Ari Wald, technical analyst at Oppenheimer Asset Management, told CNBC that gold’s move higher is temporary, and he sees it soon heading lower, with new lows likely in 2015.
Following two days of increases, the price of Indian Silver dropped by 1.7% to end at INR 37,320 ($585.94) per kilogram on Tuesday, December 30. Following two days of rising prices, the price of Chinese silver dropped 0.7% to CNY 3,400 ($546.22) per kilogram. US silver prices saw a 0.7% decline to $15.80 per ounce. Japanese silver finished the day up 0.5% to JPY 620.00 ($5.14) per 10 grams.
After a 0.8% increase, Japanese gold bullion finished the day at JPY 4,619 ($38.29) per gram. The price of Chinese gold bullion closed at CNY 238.65 ($38.34) per gram. Following a couple days of improvement, prices fell by 0.6%. The price of Indian gold bullion fell 0.5% to INR 27,120 ($425.80) per 10 grams. The price of US gold bullion declined 0.2% to $1,183 per ounce.
At $1,192 per ounce, US Platinum bar fell 1.0% on Tuesday. Japanese platinum bar saw its price rise 0.8% to JPY 4,692 ($38.89) per gram. The price of Chinese platinum bar declined 0.4% to CNY 258.00 ($41.45) per gram, after two days of improvement.
Chinese Palladium bar closed 1.1% lower at CNY 180.00 ($28.92) per gram. Japanese palladium bar prices rose 0.9% to JPY 3,203 ($26.55) per gram. US palladium bar ended the day at $808.00 per ounce, after the 0.5% drop yesterday.