Banxico, CFTC And Transparency

The gold price looks like it may finish the week on a second weekly gain. Silver, platinum and palladium are headed for weekly losses, although small.

Gold’s stability, despite U.S. dollar strength and positive economic data, has held up very well. Many who are investing and buying gold believe the bottom is near

Gold Backed Products
For those worried about gold-backed exchange traded products, you’ll be pleased to hear the holdings rose for the first time in five weeks. March has been even better for silver ETPS, which rose to a record earlier this month.

In the early hours of this morning, Haruhiko Kuroda was confirmed as Bank of Japan governor. He is expected to push for yet more stimulus in the coming weeks.

Speaking of central bankers, the EU Summit will conclude today which has seen central banks and heads of government push for more growth and to help unemployment. More time is likely to be given to France, Portugal and Spain to reduce their budget deficits.

'Investor Fatigue'
Thursday, Barclays lowered its 2013 price forecast to $1,646, citing ‘investor fatigue’. This is the thing about forecasts, you can’t possibly foresee all the elements which will affect a price. So Barclays latest prediction, is no more relevant than previous ones as there are still events and factors which we cannot possibly predict and expect.

Barclays believe the biggest factors to watch are the physical gold buying in China and investments in gold-backed funds.

Platinum
It wasn’t just gold that Barclays was discussing Thursday, but platinum, too. The bank believes the industrial precious metal will be in deficit by 251,000 ounces this year, as mine supplies fall to levels not seen since 2000. Whilst demand is expected to fall this year, on the back of reduced auto-industry expectations, however it is set to rise over the next five years by around 400,000 ounces.

Historic Birthday
Yesterday was the 113th birthday of the Gold Standard Act. Signed on March 14, 1900 by President William McKinley, the Act ended bimetallism, set the price of gold at $20.67 an ounce and valued the dollar at 25.8 grains of gold.

Banxico
Last week I wrote an article on Banxico’s gold-buying activities. Further to last week’s news, journalist Guillermo Barba now reports that the Bank has in fact been selling its physical gold held in Mexico and buying what is (presumably) paper gold in London. You can read his article here.

On Thursday, the big news in the gold and silver markets was the announcement that the U.S. CFTC is considering investigating whether the London Fix is open to manipulation. The investigation has not been formally opened but they are planning on considering whether or not the fix is transparent enough.

The mainstream media have picked up on the news and are now likening it to the LIBOR scandal, something that our own Non-Exec director Ned Naylor-Leyland mentioned many months ago.

We most enjoyed ZeroHedge’s response to the news:
We are confident that this latest noble CFTC effort will be for naught. After all, wholesale market manipulation like that of LIBOR and the energy market is contained to those sectors. It is preposterous and inconceivable that bankers, anywhere and especially in London, would be tempted to intervene illegally and push gold prices lower. After all, it is not like a surge in gold and precious metal prices is indicative of a loss of faith in the status quo and fiat money, and thus an embedded status quo oligarchy would have any interest in keeping precious metal prices lower. Which is why we urge the CFTC to promptly forget this latest charade and to instead focus on much more productive things: like ignoring the creeping takeover by high-frequency trading of all commodity markets as well as complaining to Congress about its low, low budget.