Gold
Gold has rallied to new record nominal highs in dollars with geopolitical concerns about Iran escalating and the dollar falling again. Possibly of more importance are increasing concerns about the unprecedented and huge public debt levels in large industrialised nations and the as of yet remote possibility of sovereign default (there are concerns that sovereign default could, like subprime, be the catalyst for the next stage in the global financial crisis).

Gold has risen and is trading at $1,166/oz, £701/oz and €776/oz respectively. Thus gold is rising to near record highs in all major currencies and is at new record highs in sterling and is very close to them in euro terms as well (gold’s record nominal high in euro was €782/oz and in sterling it is £690/oz – London PM Fix on 20/02/09).

Options expiry in gold today sees some very large call positions in December US$1200 indicating that big money sees gold at $1,200/oz sooner rather than later. The psychological $1,200/oz seems very likely before year end. New levels of resistance are $1,176/oz and $1,200/oz and support at $1,145/oz. Gold continues to look good both technically and fundamentally.

Silver
Silver is currently trading at $18.80/oz, £11.30/oz and €12.56/oz. Silver rose by over 6% last week and was one of the top performing assets. It remains less than half of its nominal record price in 1980 and remains very undervalued from a historical basis (see our recent research article on silver – http://www.goldcore.com/us/research/silver-set-to-soar-as-it-did-in-the-1970s/).

Platinum Group Metals
Platinum is $1,468/oz, palladium is $371/oz and rhodium is $2,600/$2,700/oz.