PT. Equityworld Futures - The plunge in the gold
price following strong US jobs data could be repeated over coming
months, according to commodities analysts.
Gold fell 2.6 per cent
from $US1200 an ounce on Friday after the release of US non-farm
payrolls data on Friday night, and was hovering around $US1170 on
Monday.
The data showed the United States added 295,000 jobs in
February “ 55,000 more than economists were expecting. Furthermore, US
unemployment dropped 0.2 of a percentage point to 5.5 per cent “ the
lowest since May 2008.
"The non-farm payroll data has been a
strong driver of the gold price over the last 18 months," said UBS
commodities analyst Jo Battershill.
"Something that was never a big driver of gold has now become a very big driver of gold."
In
addition, gold had breached an important technical level on Friday
night's plunge, which had triggered further selling, he said.
"$US1185
over the past couple of years has been seen as a major sort of support
level. There was a lot of influence around that level so that in a lot
of markets there would have been a lot of triggers on that value. I
would imagine a significant amount of value would have gone through once
it breached that level."
Mr Battershill said the end of February
through to July was traditionally a soft period for gold, which could
see the price fall further.
"What's holding it up at the moment is
that we're still seeing very, very strong physical demand out of China.
The next four months will be a battle between [US interest rate rises]
in the West and physical demand in the East.
"In the short term, you'd pick the interest rates on that."
However, in the longer term Mr Battershill predicted Asian demand would put a solid floor under the gold price.
"Every
time we see gold touch new lows in this cycle you see strong physical
demand out of China and India. Will there be a cultural shift away from
gold as a store of wealth in the East? I don't think so."
Gold is now 38 per cent off its September 2011 high of $US1900, although higher than its November 2014 low of $US1144.
ANZ commodities analyst Daniel Hynes said gold could reach $US1100 in the next three months.
"It's
come at a time when physical demand has been weak as well," he said.
"The headwinds for gold have been quite strong over the past few weeks
and that payrolls number was the straw that broke the camel's back.
"Our outlook for gold is fairly bearish at the moment . We'd be looking for prices to pressure the $US1100 level.
"Certainly
in the very short term everything's going against it ... In the next
few weeks or so there's going to be some serious headwinds which will
put downward pressure on gold prices."
US interest rates and the US dollar were both rising, as were equity markets, he said.
"All
that safe-haven buying support we saw at the start of the year has
completely evaporated and is unlikely to return in the short term."
But Mr Hynes said the long-term view for gold was better, with ANZ forecasting $US1280 an ounce for the end of 2015.
Sumber : ewfpro.com