KUALA LUMPUR: The gold futures contract on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives is likely to trade in a consolidation with an upside bias, tracking the performance of the benchmark New York Commodity Exchange (COMEX) gold futures, dealers said.
A dealer said continuous signs of global uncertainties were set to encourage better demand for gold.
The Federal Reserve’s affirmation of its dovish stance this week by putting on hold the movement of the federal funds rate in 2019, which had pressured the US dollar, was a strong support for gold, he told Bernama.
Meanwhile, OCBC Bank (M) Bhd said in a research note that unresolved US-China trade tensions, unclear Brexit directions and a series of poor global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMIs) had added fuel to gold’s ascent.
“In the short term, we see little in the way to halt gold’s push, except a sudden positive development in US-China trade talks or a prolonged series of positive macroeconomic data.
“We upgrade our short-term outlook on gold to bullish, and the longer-term outlook to neutral,” it said. For the week just ended, the local gold futures were mostly untraded despite the better performance of COMEX gold futures, on lack of local catalyst.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, spot month March 2019, April 2019, May 2019 and June 2019 settled eight ticks higher each to RM171.30, RM171.30, RM171.7 and RM172.0 a gramme, respectively.- Bernama
