The Daily Market Report: Gold Consolidates Amid Hope for Last-Minute Greek Deal


26-Jun (USAGOLD) — Gold eked out a new low for the week in early New York trading, but quickly rebounded intraday. The yellow metal remains well contained within the recent range as the market awaits an outcome on the Greek crisis.

Greece was offered a €15 bln deal earlier today that would have kicked the can until November. However, the offer was quickly rejected by Greek PM Tsipras, who categorized it as “blackmail”.

Earlier in the week German chancellor Merkel declared that she would not allow Greece to blackmail Germany. She went on to warn that if a deal is not struck before markets open on Monday, capital controls would be likely in Greece and default would be increasingly likely.

The rhetoric is certainly not reflective of negotiations that are achieving any kind of success. Nonetheless, markets seem to be holding out hope for a last-minute deal, as we’ve seen numerous times in the past.

After all, the policymakers and technocrats of Europe have summer holidays to plan. A Greek default will ruin the rest of summer! So, they have to kick the can beyond August at a minimum.

The Chinese stock market tanked on Friday, dropping 7.4%. It was the biggest one-day point drop in 7-years. That puts the Shanghai composite index down 19% from its mid-June peak. The swing from raging bull market, to the cusp of a bear market, has taken just 2-weeks.

As noted on this page in recent months, we’ve seen a lot of clients buying gold with funds they’ve taken out of the stock market. They have expressed concerns that shares are overvalued and they are taking money off that table and bolstering their hedge positions. They typically view gold as being undervalued at these levels.

Apparently the same thing is happening in China. Chinese imports of the yellow metal via Hong Kong surged 36% in May.

“We think investors are becoming increasingly worried about a more pronounced correction in China’s stock market and will return to gold to diversify their portfolios.” — Simona Gambarini, commodities economist at Capital Economics via CNBC

The heightened volatility in Chinese stocks seen in June is likely to help underpin gold, driving safe-haven demand. Continued uncertainty about Greece, even if some sort of agreement is reached, should also be supportive.

The time to own your safe-haven is before you actually need it. The May surge in Chinese gold imports suggest some Chinese investors were ahead of the curve. Certainly some of our clients have been ahead of the curve as well.

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