TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Prices of gold contracts at the New York Mercantile Exchange (COMEX) in the US went up sharply prior to the conclusion of the week's trading session on Friday morning, April 30, 2016, local time, or Saturday morning, Jakarta time.
June contracts went up by US$24,10 per ounce or 1.9 percent to conclude trading at US$1.291,50 per ounce. This means, according to COMEX figures, gold contracts have gone up by 4.92 percent - creating an average uptrend of 4.44 percent throughout the month of April 2016.
Gold prices have appreciated in the past five days - almost breaching the highest recorded price in 2016, where gold traded at US$1,291.70 per ounce on January 27, 2015.
Analyst are saying that gold prices are climbing because the Dollar index - which measures the greenback's performance against a strew of the world's major basket currency - has depreciated by 0.7 percent to 93.10 on Friday evening, Greenwich Mean Time.
Gold and the greenback usually moves in the opposite direction - when greenback depreciates, investors move into gold because gold is priced in US Dollar, making it cheaper to buy.
US shares also stumbled on Friday's closing and similarly, European shares experienced similar downtrends. This, in turn, drives investors to move into gold, as it is a more stable safe haven commodity that is always in demand.
Furthermore, gold prices are boosted by the underperformance of US consumer spending figures - although the figure went up by US$12.8 billion, or 0.1 percent in March 2016, this still falls short of the projection set by the US Department of Trade, which was released on Friday.
That said, the gold's appreciation remains limited because although private spending has not met the market's expectations, figures released by the US Department of Labour shows that private household incomes have actually increased.
Analysts are saying that this is an indication that the US economy is still on the road to recovery, but could also be mean that the US Federal Reserve will be extra careful in deciding to raise their Fed Fund rate.
Meanwhile with other precious metals - July contracts for silver gained by 23.1 cents or 1.23 percent to conclude trading at US$17,819 per ounce. July contracts for platinum also went up by US$27.7 or 2.64 percent to end trading at US$1,078.40 per ounce.
ANTARA