Commodity Blog

At the start of the Tuesday’s trading session, gold was flat while other metals rallied amid growing tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iranian protesters attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran over the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr while Saudi Arabia cut all the diplomatic and economic relations with Iran. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates did the same.

Bad economic data from China also fed the risk-averse market sentiment beneficial to gold and other precious metals. The Caixin China General Manufacturing PMI dropped from 48.6 in November to 48.2 in December, demonstrating the tenth month of a contraction of the sector. Yet the news was not necessarily good for gold in the long run as the Asian nation is a major consumer of the metal.

Bullion for delivery in February stood flat at $1,075.4 per troy ounce as of 3:38 GMT on COMEX today. March contract for silver advanced 0.64 percent to $13.93 per ounce. Spot price for platinum rose 0.66 percent to $889.41 per ounce while palladium edged up by 0.33 percent to $542.3 per ounce.

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