Although the US dollar depreciated noticeably for a time yesterday, the entire precious metals sector was characterized by a pronounced weakness, evident above all in the prices in euros.
Gold for instance dropped below the €1,100 per troy ounce mark again. The gold ETFs tracked by Bloomberg also saw renewed outflows yesterday, the European provider ETF Securities being most affected once again.
On the one hand, this is doubtless due to profit-taking after the gold price in euros achieved gains in recent weeks. On the other hand, there is likely to have been further shifting of investments from gold into equities in view of the rapidly rising European equity markets - first and foremost the DAX.
In our opinion, concerns about upcoming interest rate hikes in the US play only a subordinate role for European investors - the ECB's interest rate and monetary policy is probably more relevant as far as they are concerned.
By contrast, platinum and especially palladium fell sharply yesterday and find themselves under further pressure this morning. Platinum is trading only marginally above the $1,100 per troy ounce mark at its lowest level since July 2009, while palladium has dropped to a five-week low of a good $770 per troy ounce. Good EU car sales figures are offering no support: according to figures from the ACEA, 924,400 new cars were registered in the EU in February, 7.3% more than last February, all key sales markets making their contribution. New car registrations have thus risen for already the 18th month in a row.
