a few snippets from "hawaii Gary" on ***** this morning
thought were relevant & fairly clear.
"Fundamentally though, for gold, not much has changed. We are still in an uncertain climate and a solid haven is always in demand during periods of high volatility.
Once again ignoring true fundamentals, crude oil rose on the breath of a promise from oil-producing countries that OPEC and a few other big players will ease back on production, which theoretically would force prices up.
So far this is a pipe(line) dream. A few key players are not and will not come on board anytime soon. The first of those is Iran. Iran is just coming off the sanctions imposed on it by western nations and has tens and tens of million of barrels it wants and needs to move out of storage and into the market. Europe is Iran’s chief customer and Europe wants the cheap Iranian oil. Current estimates say that Iran is producing about 1.3 million barrels per day and can and probably will go as high as 1.9 million per day.
The U.S., Canada and Mexico are also not on board this production-cutting jamboree. In fact, the U.S. and Canada will probably re-ramp up marginal production wells/facilities as soon as the price per barrel gets near $50.
One trend Draghi and the ECB will f ind extremely difficult to counter is the one caused by the effect of lower interest rates on banks’ bottom lines. That drags down the fincancial sector and the European stock markets as a whole.
European shares rallied 3.00% before falling back to a 2.00% rise. Asian stocks snapped a five-day losing streak as China's central bank fixed the yuan at a much higher rate. This seems ridiculous to us, especially as China hopes to become a true reserve currency nation and not a name on a list. Stronger risk appetite pushed the U.S. dollar up against the yen and euro.
One more temporal condition entered the gold market today and will hang about for a week, give or take. Chinese markets re-opened after the Lunar New Year holiday with the metal around $60 an ounce higher than on February 5, when the holiday closing began."
BDR's trading seems fairly solid.
@V* l do follow the gold threads until its too much info.
ps. taking a break & heading over to Bali end of next week and further afield.
cheers
