BLBG: Gold Rises on Speculation China Stimulus Plan Will Boost Demand
By Pham-Duy Nguyen and Halia Pavliva
Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Gold rose after China said it would spend $586 billion to stimulate its economy, boosting the appeal of precious metals and other commodities.
China, which buys more industrial metals than any other country and is the biggest contributor to world growth, said it would focus on its domestic economy and invest in housing and infrastructure. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials gained as much as 3 percent today.
``Gold's following commodities higher,'' said Frank McGhee, the head dealer at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC in Chicago. ``The metals have found someone who will actually buy something.''
Gold futures for December delivery rose $10.50, or 1.4 percent, to $744.70 an ounce at 11:45 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Silver futures for December delivery rose 19.7 cents, or 2 percent, to $10.16 an ounce. Platinum for January gained $8, or 0.9 percent, to $860 an ounce on the Nymex. Palladium for December was unchanged at $224 an ounce.
China accounted for 27 percent of global economic growth last year, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. The agency is forecasting that the economies of the U.S., Japan, Europe and the U.K. will all contract next year in their first simultaneous recession since World War II.
``Speculators hope that the injection of such large sums into the Chinese economy might keep those sectors of demand, which have proven beneficial to commodities in the past, going for a while longer,'' said Jon Nadler, a senior analyst at Kitco Inc. in Montreal.
Credit Squeeze
Platinum, used in pollution-control devices in cars, and gold have fallen from records this year as the credit-market meltdown triggered a slump in the global economy and a slide in demand for raw materials.
Palladium, a cheaper substitute for platinum, is headed for the first annual decline since 2004. Silver is down 32 percent this year, heading for the first annual loss since 2000.
``The reality is that trillions of yuan involved will not be spent next week and start a new supercycle in commodities,'' Nadler said. ``The stimulus spending will extend well into the next decade, while current global conditions are anything but stimulating.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at pnguyen@bloomberg.net; Halia Pavliva in New York at hpavliva@bloomberg.net.