Gold & Precious Metals

(Kitco News) – Comex gold futures prices are modestly higher in early U.S. trading Thursday. Both gold and silver are posting corrective, short-covering bounces from selling pressure seen earlier this week, with some bargain hunting sprinkled in. The weaker U.S. dollar index is also a supportive outside market factor for the precious metals markets Thursday morning. December gold was last up $6.60 at $1,291.90 an ounce. Spot gold was last quoted up $5.20 at $1,293.00. September Comex silver last traded up $0.232 at $19.73 an ounce.

Chinese economic data released overnight was bullish for most of the market place and especially for the raw commodity sector.

….read more HERE

 China reported much better than expected trade results for July on Thursday, marking a sharp recovery from the previous month.

Chinese trade data showed exports rising 5.1% from a year earlier, swinging from June’s 3.1% fall, the customs agency said.

Imports, which had dropped 0.7% in June, showed a 10.9% leap for July.

The results far exceeded expectations from a Reuters survey of economists….

…..read more HERE

Bill Gross says ‘carry on’ with bonds

Posted by Bill Gross of Pimco via Marketwatch

on Thursday, 8 August 2013 13:34

Bill Gross has an important message for you about the bond market. In fact, “This may be the most important conceptual change I have ever written about in an Investment Outlook. Readers who have stuck with this Outlook at least to this point have a scoop, if not a magic feather,” he writes.

Screen Shot 2013-08-08 at 6.29.52 AMBut Gross, co-chief investment officer at Pimco and manager of its Total Return Fund is also the bond market’s de facto rhetorical-device-user-in-chief. So, naturally, let’s start with an extended metaphor before we get to the meat of his monthly investor letter.

….read it all HERE

 

Institutional investors’ allocations to dollar-denominated bonds have dropped to the lowest level since 2007 as strategists at Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. see a shift away from the debt that may fuel higher borrowing costs.

 Morgan Stanley’s $1.8 trillion wealth management unit has been advising clients to cut bond allocations to the lowest in more than five years. 

“Equities will outperform bonds over a seven-year timeframe because bond yields are already so low,” Darst, who oversees investment strategy at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve got a slight underweight in junk bonds. We have a big underweight in corporate and government bonds.”

….read more HERE

The fewest workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits over the past month since before the last recession, indicating the labor market is making progress.

The economy will expand at a 2.5 percent annualized rate from July through December, up from a 1.4 percent gain in the first six months of 2013 and little changed from the pace projected last month, according to a Bloomberg survey of 59 economists conducted Aug. 2 to Aug. 6.

….read more HERE

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