Gold News & Info

Source: Marketwatch.com

San Francisco— Gold futures fell over $4 an ounce Friday but closed out the quarter with a gain of more than 6%, and key indexes tracking the sector tapped eight-year highs before slipping back.

The lack of upward momentum "suggests gold's rally has temporarily run out of steam and is likely to see a bit of a correction early next week," said James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com in London.

Gold for December delivery fell $4.40 to close Friday at $471.40 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract closed out last quarter at $443 an ounce. It ended at $33.30, or 7.6%, above the month-ago close, and $4.20 above the week-ago price.

"A move back to the $462-$464 level would be the metal's initial goal," he said in an email to clients. "However, due to the scale of speculative longs, a move closer to $450 could be seen but will be well supported by physical players as the metal moves into its peak 4Q demand period," Moore said.

The dip in gold prices will "likely be short lived as the market is finding very strong buying interest on price dips with physical demand for the metal still robust despite prices being near 18-year highs," said Nell Sloane, an analyst at NSFutures.com.

"The combination of high energy prices and a strong U.S. economy with an expected multi-billion dollar infusion of Federal hurricane disaster relief has raised gold's appeal as a safe haven hedge against inflation," she said in daily commentary.

The intraday "swings from up to down and up again have to a great extent corrected a very overbought situation in the gold market," said Peter Grandich, editor of the Grandich Letter.

"Meanwhile, the combination of strong physical demand and short covering has given a floor for gold to target the all-important $500 level," he said.

"Downside risk appears limited to $450-$455 with $500 a question of when, not if," he said.

Other metals on Nymex saw mixed trading, but silver, copper, platinum and palladium each climbed for the week, month and quarter.

December silver fell 4.3 cents to close at $7.512 an ounce. It was up 5.4% for the quarter, up 2.4% for the week, and up 9.6% for the month.

Copper for December delivery shed 1.2 cents to close at $1.7275 a pound, up 22.4% from the June 30th's closing level. It was up 1.7% for the week and up 6.7% for the month.

December palladium fell 20 cents to finish $199.80 an ounce — just slightly from a week ago, but up over 8% for the month and the quarter.

And October platinum rose $5.60 to end at $930.30 an ounce. It's up 0.4% for the week, up 4% for the month, and up 5.4% for the quarter.

Tracking inventories, copper supplies were down 89 short tons at 7,611 as of late Thursday, according to the Nymex. Silver stocks were unchanged at 116.7 million troy ounces, while gold inventories stood at 6.10 million troy ounces, up 35,139 troy ounces from the previous session.