precious metals flash

Gold ended the quarter with a 6.6% gain, where the star though was Platinum, gaining 17%, closely followed by Silver, which was up 15.9%, while Palladium remained flat. Friday activity remained calm, with light gains in Gold whenever the USD showed weakness. On the Gold ETF front the ETF Securities saw a reduction of 1.1 tons in its holdings. Net futures and options positions as per last Tuesday, showed an increase of 2.2 Mio. ounces for Gold, evenly spread between new longs and reduction of shorts. Palladium saw a hefty decline of 286’000 ounces to 1 Mio. of net longs, which is rather surprising given the performance of equities, as well as recent car sales. The news over the weekend saw China's official manufacturing PMI rebounding strongly to 53.1 in March from 51 in February, which was above market expectations and lifted risk. The market seems to struggle for direction ahead of the Eastern holidays. US ISM and Eurozone PMIs are expected today, FOMC minutes will come out tomorrow, together with US Vehicle Sales and the ECB announces rates on Wednesday right before the US ADP number comes out. All this might help to bring some highly seeked volatility to precious metals option books, that have been bleeding a lot recently. Until then, 1650 to 1680 seems to be the range to watch.