: Off late crude oil’s fundamentals have been well supplied and the market has had no shortage of inventory. The prices have been firm because of the dollar weakness and partly because of the potential geopolitical problem, that has provided a floor in the market. So you saw a new range being made last month at USD 74 per barrel to USD 82 per barrel. But it hasn’t held and the it has come down below USD 74 per barrel and threatening USD 70 per barrel, which is the older range of USD 66-74 per barrel. This is happening primarily because the market is well supplied. Now, that the dollar has started strengthening, it is one big support for crude oil prices going up. The dollar carry trade has started unraveling because of the festival season, profit booking, year end liquidity issues etc.
Q: We have seen gold being slightly range bound or correcting a little bit over the past couple of weeks. Do you sense a bulk of this correction is done because I believe you are pretty bullish on the long term goal story?
A: Yes, I am. Around September, when Gold was at USD 950 per ounce we made a call of USD 1250 per ounce by February, but it went almost up to USD 1230 per ounce by the early December. So this correction was overdue because it got technically overbought and a little bit end of the season profit booking was also to be seen along with dollar strength. I think the bulk of the correction is over. I think it would find support at around USD 1060 to 1080 per ounce where new money will be attracted to the market. I expect gold to start bouncing again in the new year as ETF (exchange-traded fund) buying and fundamentals will kick in. But the thing to watch here is the dollar index, it has broken out of its six month downtrend and it could go up all the way above 80.
