Curiously—for the same firm whose own leader opined just last fall that the long-term bulls case for gold is "fatally flawed"—London-based GFMS yesterday offered a projection of $1,600/oz. gold as attainable sometime this year. Of course, the $64,000 question, at current prices, turns to assessing whether chasing a further 5%–10% potential gain in the face of extant downside risk roughly twice (or more) as large, is still worth it for latecomers to the speculative party. Long-term insurance gold buyers are exempt from the conundrum, as their objectives do not entail the profit motive.
Silver traded in relatively nervous fashion, opening with a small, $0.04 gain, and then easing by about the same amount immediately after the start of trading; but, basically, the white metal orbited in the $40.50—$40.75 space and is thought to have support that needs to hold at the $39.75 mark. Platinum and palladium offered a parallel picture at the start of this morning's action; they each lost $1 and dipped to $1,772 and $762, respectively. No change was reported in rhodium with the current bid at $2,300/oz.