
In a Bloomberg survey this week, traders and analysts were the most positive on gold since December 2015. Another bullish sign, prices have climbed above the 200-day moving average and Britain’s Royal Mint said bullion purchases jumped 20 percent in the first quarter.
“The animal spirits were asleep, but they’re waking up again,” Mark O’Byrne, a director at broker GoldCore Ltd. in Dublin, said by phone. “We have all these latent threats that have been around for a while, Trump, European elections, Brexit, and they’re all just becoming a little more acute.”
Gold futures for June delivery rose 0.8 percent to settle at $1,288.50 an ounce as of 1:43 p.m. on the Comex in New York. O’Byrne predicted prices could run to $1,400 an ounce by the end of the year.
The latest leg-up came after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a preference for a weaker dollar and France’s right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen led in polls before the first round of presidential elections.
The Credit Suisse Fear Barometer neared an all-time high this week, a warning sign as the list of economic and political concerns grows. The index measures the cost of buying protection against declines in the S&P 500 Index.
In the Bloomberg weekly survey, 14 respondents reported a bullish view, compared with one bear and two neutral. — Neal Bhai Reports
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