by Alasdair MacLeod
Gold Money
Gold and silver drifted lower this week, dollar prices falling approximately 2.5% and 1.5% respectively.
It is a continuation of the previous week’s trend, which saw larger falls. To date, from 1st January the dollar price of gold this morning in early European trade is up 15.14%, and silver 17.7%. So even though prices have fallen this month, holders of precious metals have done better than those exposed to other asset classes.
A notable feature has been the sharp contraction of gold’s open interest on Comex, which over the last eight trading sessions has contracted 71,400 contracts to a more normal 525,094 figure. This contraction broadly correlates with the fall in the gold price, as shown in our second chart.