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發表於 2006-7-10 20:24:12
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Gold May Rise for 4th Week as Record Oil Price Spurs Inflation
July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Gold may rise for a fourth week, topping $650 an ounce, on concern record-high energy costs will spur inflation.
Twelve of 23 traders, investors and analysts from Sydney to Chicago surveyed by Bloomberg News on July 6 and July 7 advised buying gold, which rose 3.1 percent to $634.80 in New York last week. Five respondents said to sell and six were neutral.
Gold reached a one-month high on July 7 after oil soared to a record $75.78 a barrel. Oil has jumped 21 percent this year, sending U.S. retail gasoline above $3 a gallon and close to record highs. The World Gold Council in London said last week that a study of the past three decades showed a 1 percent rise in U.S. consumer prices leads to a similar gain in gold.
``Gold is going higher because inflation is a growing problem worldwide,'' said James Turk, founder of Nassau, Bahamas-based GoldMoneymw801, which stores gold for investors. ``Oil is headed for $80 a barrel in the next few weeks, which is very bullish for gold.''
Gold futures for August delivery rose $18.80 last week on themw801ex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gain was expected by a majority of analysts surveyed June 29 and June 30. The Bloomberg survey has forecast the direction of prices accurately in 71 of 115 weeks, or 62 percent of the time.
Retail gasoline prices in the U.S. averaged $2.937 a gallon on July 5, 32 percent higher than a year earlier, said AAA, the nation's largest car club. About 34.3 million Americans traveled by car during the four-day Independence Day weekend from July 1 through July 4, AAA said.
Oil Outlook
Crude oil also may rise this week, the fourth straight gain, according to 26 of 38 analysts and traders surveyed by Bloomberg News. The 68 percent ratio was the most bullish response in a year. Eight respondents forecast a decline and four said prices will be little changed.
``The crude-oil price is something to take notice'' of, said Toshimitsu Kawanabe, chief analyst at Taiheiyo Bussan Co. in Tokyo. ``It's a bullish market'' for gold, he said, because ``geopolitical risks remain.''
Oil rallied last week as North Korea test-fired missiles and Iran rejected calls for a prompt reply to a European Union plan to end uranium enrichment. Those conflicts also boosted gold, which is up 50 percent in the past year and reached a 26- year high of $732 on May 12.
Inflation Accelerates
U.S. consumer prices excluding food and energy rose 0.3 percent in May, capping the biggest three-month gain since March 1995, the Labor Department said June 14. The gain last month was the third straight that exceeded analysts' estimates.
A Labor Department report on July 7 showed hourly earnings for U.S. workers rose 3.9 percent last monthmw801pared with a year earlier. That's the biggest monthly increase in wages in five years.
Some investors buy gold to preserve purchasing power in times of accelerating inflation. Gold futures surged to $873 in 1980, when a jump in the cost of oil led to a 13 percent annual rise in U.S. consumer prices.
Demand for StreetTracks Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund that is linked to the price of gold, has risen 50 percent this year. The fund has 123.7 million shares outstanding, each representing a 10th of an ounce of gold.
``Momentum is showing up in the metals markets'' and gold may reach $640 this week, said Koichiro Kamei, president of Market Strategy Institute Inc. in Tokyo. ``The interest in metals from hedge funds is getting stronger.''
Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve has been trying to keep inflation in check. Since June 2004, the U.S. central bank raised its key lending rate 17 times to 5.25 percent from a four-decade low of 1 percent to curb inflation. Interest-rate futures show traders see a 62 percent chance the Fed will increase the rate to 5.5 percent at its next policy meeting on Aug. 8.
Gold and inflation are tightly linked, according to a study by Eric J. Levin, an Urban Studies Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, and Robert E. Wright, Professor of Economics at the Strathclyde Business School in Glasgow.
``The U.S. price level and the price of gold move together in a statistically significant long-run relationship,'' Levin and Wright said in their report, which was sponsored by the World Gold Council. The report was based on research for the period of January 1976 to August 2005.
The Bank of Japan may raise interest rates for the first time in almost six years this week as core consumer prices rose for a seventh month in May, economists say.
Economists last week raised their forecasts for European Central Bank interest rates after President Jean-Claude Trichet said June 6 the bank will show ``strong vigilance'' against inflation, a separate survey showed. The bank will increase its benchmark rate to 3 percent on Aug. 3 from 2.75 percent, according to all but one of the 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. A week ago, just five out of 23 forecast such a move. |
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