By Tim Iacono
Seeking Alpha
Precious metals were pressured early last week (1/7/13-1/11/13) on continuing fallout from the release of Fed meeting minutes; the week before that, traders thought it might lead to the central bank tightening policy sooner than expected. However, lower prices once again spurred buying in Asia, where gold trading in Shanghai rose to record levels in advance of the Chinese New Year and a weakening yen led to record high gold prices in Japan, while, in the U.S., gold and silver coin sales surged.
Late in the week, better-than-expected trade figures from China spurred hopes of stronger demand for raw materials, leading to a precious metals advance. This persisted until higher-than-expected inflation in China was reported on Friday, prompting buyers to turn into sellers on fears that rising prices may limit the government’s ability to provide more stimulus for the world’s second-largest economy that now appears to be rebounding.
But, without a doubt, the most important gold-related news to emerge from China last week was of surging gold imports. As has been the case over the last year, demand from China is likely to play a key role in supporting metal prices and, eventually, pushing prices up and out of their recent trading range.