Gold found a little bit of support from safe-haven buying on Monday, but the dollar has managed to hold its own, which is proving negative for gold. Gold may have also drawn support yesterday from the rally in crude oil off of the Trump Administration's decision to end waivers on importing Iranian oil.
Disappointing data on US existing home sales and an index of business activity led to a mild pullback in the dollar on Monday and lent support to gold, but in the end the dollar held a good portion of Thursday's gains, not leaving much for the metals to cling to.
Speculative sentiment in gold and silver has clearly waned, with ETFs continuing a recent pattern of selling at the end of last week. This action was echoed in the futures markets, with the recent Commitments of Traders report showing managed money traders as net sellers of 59,706 contracts of gold for the week ending April 16th.
This moved them from a net long position to a net short of 3,969. The fund positon in gold is basically neutral, but the selling trend is negative. With the gold/silver ratio recently reaching a 25-year peak, there might be some speculative buying interest developing in silver, particularly in relation to gold.
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