Gold Slips On Profit Booking

Mumbai-India (Feb 19)  Gold futures slipped in the Asia electronic trades today as the traders booked profits after the metal rallied nonstop rally for more than 2 weeks on back of weak economic data.

April gold futures are trading down $6.5 at $ 1317.9 per ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Yesterday, it closed up rose $5.80, or 0.4% at 1,324 an ounce in floor trading. Gold posted a 4.4% gain last week.

The metal rallied yesterday following the weaker than expected data on manufacturing activity in the New York area further underlining concerns about the momentum of the economic recovery

The Empire State index slipped to 4.5 in February after soaring to 12.5 in January, which was its highest level since May 2012, according to the manufacturing survey released by the New York Federal Reserve.

MCX April gold futures may open today’s session near Rs 30150 levels with support around Rs 30000 levels.

Yesterday, in the world gold council’s 'Gold Demand Trend 2013' report, it said that India’s bullion demand gained 13% to 974.8 tons in 2013, with consumption of bars and coins rising 16 % to 362.1 tons and sales of jewelry advancing 11 % to 612.7 tons. Consumption in India, which imports almost all the bullion it needs, accounted for about 25 % of global demand in 2013, the council estimated.

Meanwhile, China became the largest gold consuming nation in 2013, overtaking India for the first time as it set a remarkable new record of 1,065.8 tonnes of the precious metal in 2013, as showed by the World Gold Council report. In China, the total demand stood at 806.8 tonnes in 2012.

(Source: Indiainfoline)