by Frik Els
Mining.com
On Tuesday gold continued to trade sideways with December futures trading on the Comex market in New York exchanging hands at $1,270.50 an ounce. While down more than $100 an ounce from two-year highs touched in July, year to date the metal is still managing gains of nearly 20%, one of its best annual performances since 1980.
Gold’s run-up in 2016 is largely thanks to investors in developed markets snapping up tonnes in listed physically-backed gold ETFs and large-scale speculators on gold derivatives markets placing record-setting bets on a higher gold price (although that trend’s moved into reverse recently).