(Kitco News) - Although bullish sentiment remains strong in the gold market, there is a growing sense that the precious metal will continue to spin its wheels in the mud without any new fundamental news to drive prices, according to the latest results of the Kitco News weekly gold survey.
A majority of Wall Street analysts and Main Street investors remained bullish on gold but there were strong neutral voices in both surveys.
“Gold market bulls need a fresh fundamental news spark to restart the near-term price uptrend,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior technical analyst at Kitco.com.
This week, 14 Wall Street professionals took part in the latest Kitco survey. Among the participants, seven voters, or 50%, called for gold prices to rise; six analysts, or 43%, said they expect to see prices trade sideways and one analyst, or 7%, said they see gold prices lower next week.
A total of 1,367 votes were cast in online Main Street polls. Of these participants, 829 respondents, or 60%, looked for gold to rise next week. Another 290, or 21%, said they were neutral, while 248 voters, or 18%, were bearish.
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60%18%The gold market is preparing to end the week with modest gains; however, the market is clearly stuck in a narrowing consolidation pattern. December gold futures last traded at $1,966.60 an ounce, up nearly 1% from the previous week. In the previous survey, retail investors were bullish on gold, while Wall Street analysts were mostly bearish.
Looking ahead, George Gero, managing director at RBC Wealth Management, said that although he was bullish on gold, he doesn’t see prices breaking above resistance at $2,000 an ounce anytime soon.
“There are enough problems in the world to push gold prices higher but with the Fed not looking at new stimulus measures, gold isn’t ready to break out of this range,” he said.
Although gold is caught in the grinder, Richard Baker, editor of the Eureka Miner’s Report, said that low volatility and the technical outlook point to higher gold prices in the near-term.
“It is likely Comex gold will see $1,980 per ounce next week and silver $27.36 per ounce,” he said in a comment to Kitco News.
Baker added that he is bullish on gold as the U.S. dollar continues to struggle. “The fortunes of the U.S. dollar grow dimmer with more expected Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury largesse,” he said.
Adrian Day, president and CEO of Adrian Day Asset Management, said that he is bullish on gold as the market continues to hold major support through consolidation.
“There are certainly sufficient things in the world to support gold, not least of which is the extreme easy policies being pursued by central banks around the world,” he said.
The only bearish vote this week came from Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank.
In a report published this week, he said that disappointing central bank action could push gold prices to retest support at $1,900 an ounce.
In a comment to Kitco News, Hansen added that he continues to watch gold ’s correlation with equity markets.
“Gold is still in a consolidation phase with most of the input coming from stocks as algos have latched onto the high positive correlation between S&P and gold,” he said. “We still see some downside risks in stocks with focus on the sub-11000 support level in Nasdaq.”
