A round of risk off, safe haven news seemed to reach a peak on Tuesday, with House Speaker Pelosi announcing a formal impeachment inquiry and President Trump's speech at the UN raising further concerns about the fate of a possible trade deal between the US and China.
Gold closed higher Tuesday for the third session in a row and continued its steady march higher since putting in a low on September 18th, but one would have thought that the gold bulls would have reacted more strongly to the swirl of bad economic data, uncertain trade prospects and political uncertainty.
Silver consolidated in the upper end of Monday's breakout higher. Overnight, the dollar recovered its losses from yesterday, and gold set back slightly.
In his speech to the UN, Trump excoriated China over their trade practices, and this seemed to discourage hopes for a trade agreement. Earlier in the day, the release of the September US Consumer Confidence reading came in worse than expected with the biggest decline in nine months, and this added to recession fears. The dollar fell steadily throughout the day, which was also supportive to gold and silver.
Exchange-traded funds added 7,851 ounces of gold to their holdings in the last trading session, bringing the total to 80.2 million. As a percent of holdings, the purchase was negligible, but it marked the seventh straight day gold holdings have increased, and it brought net purchases for the year to 9.13 million ounces. Holdings are at a six-year high.
In the wake of all of the safe haven worries, some are calling for gold to reach the $1600 level. The trend of higher highs and higher lows stretched to four sessions on Tuesday, so the short term bull trend is intact.
ETFs sold 1.15 million ounces of silver, bringing their holdings to 620 million. The silver sale represented 0.2% of holdings.
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