Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Dubai gold sales under pressure, futures trading booms

DUBAI, July 16 (Xinhua) -- While the precious metals derivative market DGCX reported lately that traded contracts doubled in the first half of 2013, jewelry shopkeepers feel the squeeze that physical gold loses its shine amid the price slump and due to new U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Source from (Xinhuanet): http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2013-07/16/c_132546815.htm
Published: July 17, 2013


"Investors continue to exit the gold market in favor of other asset classes, most likely to be investing in equities," Gerhard Schubert, the head of precious metals at bank Emirates NBD in Dubai, said on Tuesday.

The price of gold hit a 3-year low at around 1,180 U.S. dollars per ounce in June, before recovering slightly. The fall of gold has motivated retail investors to shift capital from precious metals to stocks.

On July 1, new U.S. sanctions on gold trade with Iran went into effect. "Many gold traders are confused and refrain from selling to the thousands of Iranian tourists," said Mohammed Ala, a Jordanian shop-owner in the gold souq in the old town of Deira.

Despite the sharp decrease in the yellow metal's value, institutional and private investors continued to buy and sell futures contracts at the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) which reported that for the last six months that 7.72 million contracts changed hands, an increase of 101 percent year on year.

Besides futures and options on gold, derivatives contracts on silver and currencies such as the Indian rupee are also traded at the DGCX, the only derivatives market by international standards in the Middle East.

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