Investing.com - Gold’s arrival at the $1,200-ounce level has been well received. Where it goes from here appears to be anyone’s guess.
Since its rise above the $1,190 territory on Aug. 24, the yellow metal has been practically locked in a tight $50 trading band, reaching the upper band a few times last week to peak at three-month highs of $1,246.
In Monday’s session, gold futures for December delivery settled down $8.20 at $1,227.60 per ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was depressed by a stronger dollar index, which rose by 0.2% to 96.36 against a basket of six currencies.
For the month though, gold was on track to a gain of 3.25%, the best performance since July 2017.
To gold’s detractors, that sort of gain -- less than 4% -- amid October’s global rout in equities and tensions such as Italy’s budget crisis and Saudi Arabia’s crisis over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi wasn’t reflective of a safe-haven that’s supposed to be a hedge to all of the world’s financial and political troubles.
But to gold bugs such as Walter Pehowich of Dillon Gage Metals in Addison, Texas, it is a remarkable journey for a metal that has weathered not only a relatively strong dollar after the third U.S. rate hike in September, but also an increasingly hawkish Federal Reserve.
Pehowich also points out that both the dollar and equities are supposed to be contrarian bets against gold, yet bullion prices haven’t conceded much even when stocks on Wall Street rallied, such as on Monday.
“A rebounding equity market can only help keep the price of gold under wraps and keep the spot price in a trading range between $1,215 and $1,235,” Pehowich said in a note.
In other precious metals trading on COMEX, silver futures fell 1% to $14.46 a troy ounce by 3:10 PM ET (1820 GMT).
Palladium futures lost 0.8% to $1,077.20 an ounce, while sister metal platinum traded up 0.2% to $835.80.
Among base metals, COMEX copper slid 1% to $2.715 a pound.