A conciliatory year-end?

In a few hours, trading for the year 2016 will come to a close. The last hours of trading often hold surprises, as the typical lack of liquidity means that even small buy or sell orders can cause major fluctuation. Last night, this was the case for the euro against the US dollar, when the euro jumped from 1.05 to 1.07 before falling back to 1.05 within minutes. It is therefore impossible to forecast at which price level gold will take its bow for the year tonight. We might, however, dare to presume that the year will close as a golden one, despite the fact that it traded at much higher levels this summer.  

Throughout the current post-Christmas week, the markets have remained extremely calm with few exceptions, and gold continuously gained ground. Exactly a week ago, it stood at a meek 1,131 US$/ounce but steandily rose to 1.163 US$/ounce last night, due to the at times significantly slackening US dollar. The precious metal currently trades at 1,159 US$/ounce, a weekly gain of approximately 2.5 per cent. On the last trading day of 2015, it stood at a much lower level of 1,059 US$/ounce. In a direct comparison, this means that gold has risen by US$100, or roughly 9 per cent, and has thus beat the DAX – if the situation remains the same until trading for 2016 closes tonight.

Investors in the euro zone also had every reason to rejoice this week. From 34.85 €/gram last Friday, the price of Xetra-Gold climbed to its weekly high of 35.53 €/gram yesterday evening. It has remained steady and currently trades at 35.45 €/gram. At the end of 2015, Xetra-Gold stood at 31.35 €/gram, which is a sound increase of slightly above 10 per cent year on year. Not bad at all, in my humble opinion.

All eyes are now on the New Year to see how trading will commence. Most countries have a bank holiday on Monday (the US, China, Japan, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada, amongst others). On Tuesday, however, trading will be in full swing across the globe, and the first trends of the New Year might well already be discernible.

To all of our loyal readers, I wish you a good start into 2017 and all the best for the New Year.