Fundamental Precious Metals (2012-04-27)

Once again, worries from the euro area weighed on gold prices, where the shiny metal failed to continue its rise today after Standard & Poor's rating agency downgraded the Spanish credit ranking for the second time on deteriorating budget deficit and economic conditions; the rating agency cut the rating of Spain by two notches to triple-B+ from A, while cutting the short-term rating to A-2 from A-1, turning the outlook on Spain to negative.

In addition, still there are political worries in France and Netherlands and macroeconomic concerns after yesterday's report showed that European economic confidence plummeted to 92.8 in April compared with a revised of 94.5 and projections of 94.2.

Accordingly, gold did not succeed in resuming its rebound which started after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said he would not hesitate to launch QE3 if the economy to weaken, following the drop in the euro which fell from 3-1/2-week high versus the dollar.

The green currency managed to rebound against a basket of major currencies; the dollar index is currently moving around 79.13, yet it is expected to face strong resistance if it approached 79.30.

Yesterday, U.S. pending home sales showed 4.1% advance in March compared to a revised of 0.4%, while today eyes will focus on the first-quarter growth data which is expected to show that annualized GDP will record 2.5% expansion following a 3.0% advance in the last quarter of 2011.

The shiny metal is currently trading higher around $1652.70, close to the day's low of $1650.46 an ounce, where it will probably find strong support of $1640.

Crude oil for June's delivery is meanwhile showing a slight drop to trade around $103.95 a barrel after opening today's trades at $104.26.