Daily Gold Update

Source: Marketwatch

San Francisco— Gold won't likely get a break this summer as investors seek out alternatives to falling confidence in the economy, and the strong investment demand may couple with physical demand in the fourth quarter to lift prices back into record territory, analysts said. "The gold market in the past has been seasonal, with the rule being 'sell in May and go away'," said Julian Phillips, an analyst at GoldForecaster.com. The seasonal pattern usually meant that gold would see a lull in demand beginning in May and lasting until the middle to the end of August, with main demand appearing in the final quarter of the year and lasting until the end of May, he said.

But for the month of June, gold futures prices climbed more than 4% and they gained almost 11% in the first half of this year. "Expectations of a quiet summer in the gold pits have been summarily dismissed as a confluence of bullish factors have led gold to rally sharply and test the high side of the recent trading range," said Mark O'Byrne, a Dublin-based executive director at Gold and Silver Investments Ltd. And gold's likely to continue its rally in the second half of the year — "as it did last year and has done most years since the inception of the gold bull market," he said. See full story.