In The Lead – There’s Gold In Them Thar Mattresses And…Bottles Of Perrier?!

Gold and other precious metals treaded water on Monday as the exchanges on which they trade slowly went under several feet of water courtesy of Sandy the Superstorm. While not all was well and back to normal this morning, electronic trading quotes enabled us to round up some prices for you to glance at. Spot gold was last seen near $1,713 while silver traded at $32 per ounce on the bid-side. Platinum was up $12 at $1,748 the ounce and palladium advanced $9 to the $596 mark. Copper and crude oil were both marginally higher while the US dollar ticked a tad lower but remained very near the 80.00 level on the trade-weighted index.

Robust September US consumer spending figures helped the greenback vault to the 80.25 level on Monday but the markets were otherwise preoccupied with Sandy and were able to pay little attention to the metric. This week’s US employment report may be delayed by the aftermath of the storm and thus the opportunity for the two Presidential candidates to capitalize on the numbers with just days ahead of the elections might not materialize either.

In technical terms, according to ForexPros.com, the daily chart for gold remains “firmly bearish” following the prolonged stall within the $1,740-$1,780 value zone and after having thrice failed at or near the $1,800 mark (some have called that a triple top). ForexPros opines that if the $1,700 support fails to hold then the next plausible target for gold would actually be around $1,620 per ounce. Other technicians believe that if the 200-day moving average level is taken out in gold, then a potential drop to levels as low as $1,250 could be in the cards.

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