Dealing Desk Update: Gold price kept afloat by expected consumer demand

This week has been a quieter one for customers of online precious metals trader GoldMoney, although the company has reported slightly more buyers with its ratio of buyers to sellers at 1.13.

Head of Dealing at GoldMoney, Roland Khounlivong said: 'The market was hoping for a little more from the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, but it ended up a bit of a non event with the expectation that US interest rates will remain quite low for some time yet.

'Gold prices increased slightly yesterday on further geo-political worries, the Ukraine situation rumbled on and the tension in Thailand has added to it. Meanwhile, the publication of the Chinese Purchasing Managers Index showed activity in Chinese factories declining at a slower rate than had been anticipated and that gave some support to gold, with China being the biggest consumer of the yellow metal.

'Another factor providing some support has been news that the second largest importer of gold, India, is easing import rules by allowing seven more private agencies to ship precious metal into the country. Overall though, there is no real catalyst to push gold above the $1,300 mark at present and we have seen profit taking this week with both gold and silver.

'Next week I expect the market to drift with no big economic news expected and public holidays in the UK and USA.'

16:00 22/05/14: Week on week performance: Gold slipped 0.27% to $1,297.50; Silver lost just 0.10% at $19.55; Platinum gained 1.32% to $1,489.80 while Palladium also rose 2.35% to $835.45.

NOTES TO EDITOR

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GoldMoney is one of the world's leading providers of physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium for retail and corporate customers. Customers can trade and store precious metal online easily and securely, 24 hours a day.

GoldMoney has offices in London, Jersey and Hong Kong. It offers its customers storage facilities in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK provided by the leading non-bank vault operators Brink's, Via Mat, Malca-Amit, G4S and Rhenus Logistics.

Historically gold has been an excellent way to preserve purchasing power over long periods of time. For example, today it takes almost the same amount of gold to buy a barrel of crude oil as it did 60 years ago which is in stark contrast to the price of oil in terms of national currencies such as the US dollar.

GoldMoney is regulated by the Jersey Financial Services Commission and complies with Jersey's anti-money laundering laws and regulations. GoldMoney has established industry-leading governance policies and procedures to protect customers' assets with independent audit reporting every 3 months by two leading audit firms.

Visit www.goldmoney.com.

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