Gold price rebound not to dispel market fears

The tiny advance in the price of gold from its 3-year low on Friday will not change the negative sentiment in the market, said Gerhard Schubert, the head of precious metals at Emirates NBD in Dubai, on Saturday. The price of gold fell over the week to 1,235 U.S. dollars per ounce, down 63 dollars or 4.85 percent, compared to last week, after the yellow metal tanked down to a low of 1,182 dollars last Friday. The suspicion was strong that the late rally from Friday was mere window dressing, "in front of valuations for end of month, end of quarter and half-year end," Schubert wrote in his weekly assessment of global precious metals. Schubert said the second quarter was especially disastrous for gold as its prices started at 1,600 dollars per ounce in April, " meaning that the gold price dropped 26 percent in this last quarter alone." The precious metals expert stated the inability of the market to claw anything back had been "quite scary." The shorts and bears were in total control of the market, added Schubert. Regarding the mid-term outlook, Schubert said the odds are that the worst might be over (in percentage terms) as the price might find the equilibrium between supply and demand, bringing up two arguments. Firstly the Reserve Bank of India bought 200 tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund in 2009 and "the price paid was close to 1,146 dollars per ounce, a level... that was never broken." Secondly, the all-in-sustainable-cost producing price for the 10 biggest mining companies is just shy of 1,100 dollars, he added. "The gold price is within 10 percent of the production price and that must have some ramifications for mining operations all over the world," said the Emirates NBD expert. The price of gold fell to its lowest in almost three years on Wednesday.