TruthInGold''Dollar is not your friend''

Last week, the finance minister spoke out about the problem of gold imports. Some 12% of India's import bill is on account of gold. With the current account deficit of the country worsening, the government's thoughts are tending towards the huge drain that gold imports are on our forex reserves. The minister said that had gold imports been half of what they were, the forex reserves would have been $10 billion higher. He indicated that measures to make gold import costlier - presumably, higher import duty - were in the works. There was a range of reactions to his statement, with some saying that this approach was right, while others saying that it was wrong. Meanwhil...

The city is building itself up as a centre for the gold trade, between sources in Africa and consumers in the rising economies of China and India. Dubai now has about a 29 per cent market share of global gold trade with nearly 1,200 tonnes — worth about $41 billion — changing hands at the city’s gold markets, according to the gold industry website bullionstreet.com. That’s up from around $6 billion worth traded in the emirate in 2003, said Malcolm Wall Morris, CEO of Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, set up by the emirate to oversee the trade. “There’s no doubt the geographical location of Dubai has played an important factor,” he said. Dubai is sometimes called...

Gold’s 12-year bull market is over as U.S. economic growth means investors will switch focus to precious metals that benefit from expansion, the top forecaster in the London Bullion Market Association’s 2012 poll said. Prices will average $1,600 an ounce this year, down from a record $1,668.75 last year, Rene Hochreiter, a director and chief executive officer of Johannesburg-based Allan Hochreiter (Pty) Ltd., said by phone last week. The high will be $1,700, below the record of $1,921.15 an ounce set in 2011, he said. “I think America will sort itself out and the economy will start moving again, positively,” Hochreiter, 55, said from Inhambane, Mozambique. “As gold ...

Gold tumbled, poised for the longest run of weekly losses since 2004, as Federal Reserve policy makers said that they’ll probably end asset purchases this year and investors cut holdings by the most since May. Silver slumped to the lowest since August while palladium and platinum dropped. Bullion is 0.4 percent lower this week, set for a sixth weekly drop. Holdings in exchange-traded products, which reached a record 2,632.516 metric tons on Dec. 20, decreased 0.4 percent yesterday, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Fed policy makers said that they will probably end their $85 billion monthly bond purchases sometime in 2013, with members divided between a mid- or end...

Gold inched up on Thursday, holding near its highest level in two weeks hit in the previous session following a last-minute deal to avert a U.S. fiscal disaster, although caution remained over upcoming tough budget negotiations. Commodities made a strong start to the new year by hitting multi-week highs on Wednesday after the U.S. Congress passed a bill that raises taxes on wealthy individuals and families, sparing middle- and low-income earners. But it left unresolved another sticky issue involving $109 billion in planned military and domestic spending cuts, promising more political showdowns on the budget in coming months. Gold typically benefits from economic ...

Gold rebounded from intraday lows on Wednesday after the U.S. Congress finally passed a bill that avoids tax hikes and spending cuts worth $600 billion, but the temporary reprieve drew muted reaction from bullion investors in Asia. Even though the world's biggest economy will no longer go over the "fiscal cliff", other bruising budget battles lie ahead in the next two months. Gold ended up around 7 percent in 2012, the 12th straight year of gains for the precious metal in what is one of the longest bull runs ever for a commodity. Spot gold struck a record of around $1,920 in September 2011, when a worsening debt crisis in Europe sparked a buying rush. "Right n...

The government is considering steps to reduce gold import by making it more expensive, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Wednesday. “Demand for gold must be moderated... We may be left with no choice but to make it more expensive to import gold. The matter is under government consideration,” he told reporters in New Delhi. Gold import is a major constituent of India’s rising Current Account Deficit (CAD). The CAD widened to a record high of 5.4 per cent of GDP, or $ 22.3 billion, in the July-September quarter. In value terms, gold imports stood at $ 20.2 billion in the April-September period of the current fiscal, a decline of 30.3 per cent over the corresp...