Continued headwind for gold and silver from money managers

Gold and silver are trading largely unchanged at around $1,255 per troy ounce and just over $19 per troy ounce respectively this morning. As the latest CFTC’s statistics revealed, speculative financial investors are taking an increasingly pessimistic view of both precious metals. In the week to 3 June, net long positions in gold were slashed by a third of their former level, putting them at 38,200 contracts, their lowest level for 19 weeks. At the same time, this marked their fourth consecutive weekly decline and once again was due to a sharp increase in short positions.

The picture is much the same for silver, where we meanwhile see record-high short positions, meaning that net short positions have now also been increased to 7,600 contracts – their highest figure since the data series began in mid-2006. In other words, gold and silver prices are continuing to face headwind from money managers.

Palladium price at highest level for more than 3 years

In contrast to gold and silver, platinum and above all palladium gained further ground – the latter even climbing to just shy of $850 per troy ounce to achieve its highest price since February 2011. In the South African platinum mining strike, the attempt by the new Mineral Resources Minister to mediate has clearly failed. After yet another round of talks came to an inconclusive end yesterday, the inter-governmental task force that had chaired the negotiations was disbanded. Both parties are now reviewing their next steps, and there appears to be no end in sight to the strike.