Institutional Investors

A reminder of the sharp increase in demand for gold and silver, particularly store of wealth demand, in recent years was seen in the figures released by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association in Shanghai today. China’s gold consumption rose 33% to 761 tons in 2011 and China’s silver consumption rose 6.8% to 6,088 tons last year. China’s gold consumption rose 190 metric tons last year to 761 tons, Wang Shengbin, China Gold Association Vice Chairman, said in a speech in Shanghai as reported by Bloomberg. China’s jewelry consumption jumped 28 % to 456.7 tons last year, gold bar consumption surged 51% to 213.9 tons and gold coin consumption gained 25% to 20.8 tons, Wang said. China’s silver consumption, including industrial use, jewelry and coins, rose 6.8% to 6,088 metric tons last year, the vice chairman said. The amount shows a surplus given China’s output of 12,348 tons last year, which gained 6.3%, Wang said.

Did Facebook Feed Inside Information to the Big Boys … While Leaving the Individual Investor In the Dark?

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In an interview with Louis James, John Hathaway discusses the US's economic outlook and why he's delighted by the current bearish sentiment toward gold. "I think we're at the end of a correction that resulted from the peak last summer. It was overcooked, kind of hyperventilated hysteria over the debt-ceiling talks, the rating downgrade of the US sovereign debt, and I think basically the stocks and the metal had been working off that boiled down to what we now have is a simmer. I think we are at a position where there's not a lot of downside, and I would not be surprised by revisiting the previous highs of $1,900 and maybe even new highs over $2,000 this year."

The World Gold Council has released the Q1 2012 Gold Demands Trend report. Gold demand grew 16% over the past 12 months to 1,098 tonnes. This had a US dollar value of just $59.7 billion spent on gold, globally, in Q1 2012. While global demand was down 5% from the record high of Q4 2011, it was significantly higher than demand in Q1 2011 suggesting that global demand may be consolidating at these higher levels.  Probably the most important aspect of demand and one of the most important fundamentals in the gold market is that of still very robust and increasing Chinese demand. In this the Chinese Year of the Dragon – China is becoming a fundamental driver of the gold market. Global demand was boosted by China posting a quarterly record of 98.6 tonnes of investment demand up 13% from Q1 2011. This increase was a result of investors’ continued move to preserve wealth amid ongoing concerns over inflation, volatility in equity markets and price falls in some property markets. Jewellery demand in China, much of which is also store of wealth demand, increased to 156.6 tonnes – 30% of the global appetite.  This increase places China as the largest jewellery market for the third consecutive quarter.

If indications become reality then we are faced with a leftist government in Greece that will either renegotiate a new bailout agreement with Europe or it will head back to the Drachma or be forced there by the refusal of European Union to provide any additional funds. In Spain we are faced with bare bones arithmetic where the country cannot bailout its Regional debt and its back debt because they do not have the capital to do either; much less both. Both countries can flop about for a brief period of time but the conclusions are unavoidable we are afraid and so a very unpleasant landscape awaits us in the coming days. We have warned about all of this for quite some time and we have hammered upon it in recent days as equities, credit/risk assets, the Euro have all declined in value as I had predicted. There may well be a bounce or two along the way but we continue to maintain that dark days lie ahead based not only upon fundamentals but based upon a union in Europe that has been deceptive in presentation and deceitful in practice.

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While gold is now negative year to date in dollar terms, it remains 0.7% higher in euro terms. Gold prices dropped 3.7% last week and silver fell 5.1% to $28.89/oz. The smart money, especially in Asia, is again accumulating on the dip. Demand for jewellery and bullion in India has dipped in recent weeks but should resume on this dip – especially with inflation in India still very high at 7.23%. Also of interest in India is the fact that investment demand has remained robust and gold ETF holdings in India are soon to reach the $2 billion mark. This shows that recent gold weakness is primarily due to the recent bout of dollar strength.  Morgan Stanley has said in a report that gold’s bull market isn’t over despite the recent price falls. Morgan Stanley remains bullish on gold as it says that the ECB will take steps to shore up bank balance sheets, U.S. real interest rates are still negative, investors have held on to most of their exchange traded gold and central banks are still buying gold.

All you need to read and some more.

• China Industrial Output Growth Slows Sharply In April (WSJ)
• Indian industrial output shrinks unexpectedly (AFP)
• China’s Inflation Moderates, Adding Room for Easing (Bloomberg)... a nickel for every "imminent RRR-cut" prediction
• Drew Built 30-Year JPMorgan Career Embracing Risk (Bloomberg)
• Spain Offered Time to Curb Deficit (FT)
• France Entrepreneurs Flee From Hollande Wealth Rejection (BBG)
• Venizelos Eyes Unity Deal After Agreement With Democratic Left (Ekathimerini)
• Berlin Reaches Out to the Periphery (FT)
• Bernanke Speaks About Risks From End of Pro-Growth Plans (Bloomberg)

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CFTC data from Friday showed that money managers cut long positions on Comex gold futures and options in the week ended April 24 to the lowest level in more than three years. Managed funds slashed 2,225 long positions, or bets prices will rise, and added 2,450 short positions, or bets prices will fall.  The managed-fund net long position was cut by 4% and now represents around 10.7 million troy ounces of gold. This took their net position down 4% to 107,600 long contracts, from 112,275 long contracts. That's the lowest in CFTC data since the week ended Jan. 20, 2009. The low in January 2009 corresponded with the low in the gold price for 2009 - monthly low of $807/oz - prior to seeing gains which saw the gold price rise more than 50% to above $1,200/oz in late November 2009 (see chart below). A similar price gain would see gold rise from $1,663/oz today to $2,494.50/oz in the coming months. Also of note is the fact that large commercial traders have greatly cut back their short positions in gold and especially in silver. This has often been a sign of a bottom and suggests that they do not expect gold and silver to fall much further. In Comex silver futures and options, these traders added 248 long contracts and 2,883 short contracts. This reduced their net long position by 20% to 10,756 contracts, from 13,390 contracts the previous week. The net silver position represents around 53.7 million troy ounces of silver.

Given the dominance of the machines, do flesh-and-blood traders have a chance?

There is the slow realisation that the complacency of recent months was again misplaced. It remains obvious that the euro zone debt crisis is far from over and this will support gold in the coming months – especially in euro terms. 

Gold in euro terms has been consolidating above €1,200/oz for six months now. With the eurozone crisis set to deepen and the continuing risk of contagion, we could see gold break out in euro terms prior to doing so in dollars, pounds and other currencies.