Yingxi Yu

Impressive gains are seen in platinum and palladium, which are rising strongly above their recent ranges.

The downside appears quite limited at present...There are factors pointing to further gains in the gold market in the short term.

Interest still exists even at such high prices.

The market has been rising without any major correction since late last year. This sort of correction was largely anticipated and it could be taken by some as a healthy feature to the market.

This has the potential to push prices higher. Gold has always had a traditional role as an asset which holds its value in times of uncertainty.

Gold is probably going to remain in a range-bound trade today and should find good support above 565 against an environment of high oil prices.

A weak dollar has been the key supportive theme recently, while the surrounding geopolitical backdrop is adding to the support.

Any price dip has been quite well supported by fund buying, and aggressive selling has been discouraged. The positive sentiment remains very strong and people are looking for further price gains.

Technical trends are looking very strong and people find it very risky to go short right now. I think that's why the rally has been continuing.

There is no market-specific impetus for fresh long positions to be established at present. Sentiment has been weakened by weakness across commodities over the past few days and the dollar is holding up well.

Prices are being driven up by hedge funds, which are buying platinum because its fundamentals are looking good. Platinum has been in deficit for the past six years, and it's expected it will be in deficit this year.

Short term price trends will continue to largely depend on gold.

The weaker (gold-dollar) correlation late last year and early this year was due to the overwhelming enthusiasm among the speculative community to drive prices higher.

Price dynamics in gold next year will continue to be largely determined by speculative interest, backed by a myriad of justifications like inflationary risks, energy-price led economic slowdown, expectations of a US dollar correction, soaring physical demand, supply-side constraints, hopes of large scale central bank buying and so on.

We expect the market to remain in consolidation mood for now, though thin trading conditions ahead of the long holiday weekend could well spark big price movements.

The strong price action and impressive technical trends in various currencies suggest prices should remain elevated in 2006.