BLBG:Gold Advances With Equities Before Federal Reserve Meeting, Greek Bailout
Gold may climb, gaining alongside equities and commodities, before a Federal Open Market Committee meeting and as Greece prepares to receive a second bailout. Platinum neared parity with gold.
Spot gold traded at $1,703.13 an ounce at 3:33 p.m. Singapore time, after earlier gaining 0.3 percent to $1,706.05. Assets in exchange-traded products rose to a record 2,408.981 metric tons yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The metal had the biggest one-day decline since 2008 on Feb. 29 after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke gave no signal for a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, sending the dollar higher. The dollar fell today against a six-currency basket including the euro and yen.
“A lot of it is going to hinge on the Fed meeting later on today,” said Nick Trevethan, senior commodities strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “The market’s quite happy sitting on the fence at the moment.”
Euro-area finance ministers yesterday signed off on a second Greek bailout and will give a formal approval tomorrow, a day before the International Monetary Fund board votes on its contribution. That sent stocks and commodities higher today.
Spot gold of 99.99 percent purity on the Shanghai Gold Exchange traded little changed at 347.17 yuan a gram ($1,707.10 an ounce), paring an earlier 0.6 percent decline. Volumes for the benchmark cash contract were 3,906 kilograms yesterday, down from 4,205.60 kilograms on March 9.
Platinum Ratio
Platinum prices climbed above gold for the first time since September yesterday on concern that production in South Africa is declining amid improving global auto sales. One ounce of platinum bought as much as 1.0007 ounces of gold yesterday, the most since Sept. 19, according to Bloomberg data. The so-called ratio was last at 0.9948.
Cash platinum was little changed at $1,694 an ounce, swinging between gains and losses, after climbing in the past four days. The price has gained 21 percent this year and has tied with silver as the best-performing precious metal.
Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by platinum climbed 8.2 percent this year, compared to a 2.8 percent gain in silver ETPs. Spot silver was little changed at $33.6975 an ounce, also swinging between gains and losses. Palladium lost 0.2 percent to $700.25 an ounce.
To contact the reporter on this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
