Factors That Affect Metals' Quotes

Trading CFD does not only mean trading currencies, stocks and indices, but also means trading Precious Metals. The most popular Metals on the market, of course, are gold and silver.

Gold is the most liquid asset, as it’s very susceptible to economic and financial changes (the increasing/decreasing of the US interest rates, in particular). It has a high correlation with the leading world currencies: the Euro and the Dollar.

Sometimes this correlation with major currencies is negative (e.g. the euro is in an upward trend while gold is in a decline). However, it does happen from time to time, that the Australian dollar quotes have a positive correlation with the GOLD chart (both going upward, for example).

Factors That Affect Quotes

Metals trading is affected by seasons, market volume, and up/down trends throughout the day. As a general rule trading decisions should be made based on data from the Economic Calendar and it’s best to follow statistics from America and China

Global industry plays a large role in trading Precious metals: silver mining companies, and the main buyers of silver, create the market for it. Therefore, it’s important to not only follow the general high-tech and metal-mining news, but also pay attention to regional events when predicting price movements. Issues with Precious Metals production or new investment into the business are things that can cause corresponding market fluctuations. E.g., the price of Silver depends on the main factors of the global economy - inflation, GDP growth, refinancing rates and decisions made by the global central banks. During periods of economic upheaval, Precious Metals prices jump, as more and more investors seek to protect their capital from febrile changes in the foreign exchange market.

Moreover, experts say that Silver is not an unlimited resource which means that its price will constantly increase over time – so, the analysts predict a further upward trend.

As a rule of thumb, gold and silver, react negatively to the growth of stock indices, at which point the attractiveness of Precious Metals as a ‘safe asset’ decreases.

As far as Platinum trading goes, the main factor affecting its exchange value is the balance of supply and demand. Unlike gold, which is mined in its purest form, Platinum exists only in the form of an alloy with other metals, due to the process of extraction and separation being complicated and energy consuming. Because of that the global annual production of Platinum is only approximately 5 million troy ounces, which is not large figure in comparison to the annual gold production, which is 17 times higher, and silver which is 100 times higher.

Platinum has specific properties that keep this metal in demand in many industries, although, approximately 40% of it is used in automobile production.

The global supply and demand of Metals has a significant impact on their value. Thus, with the increase of demand, the prices of Metals rise, and vice versa – when the demand is weak, the value of Precious Metals declines. However, this effect occurs mainly in the longer term, and does not change the short-term prices.

The value of gold is also affected by any major economy fluctuation brought on by GDP, unemployment reports and production activity, when market participants prefer to choose the so-called ‘safe’ assets, which Precious Metals are.

China has a leading position in production of Precious Metals such as gold, copper, aluminium, etc and keeping an eye on those figures is important.

Exchange trading

The biggest international locations for trading Precious Metals are London, New York and Shanghai. Other locations share a smaller volume of the Precious Metals trade.

• The London Metal Exchange (LME) specializes in intermediary transactions with non-ferrous Metals. Its history is associated with raw materials coming to the UK from overseas for production of tin and copper. The exchange started in 1877 with copper trading. Short-term contracts were signed for three months, which was the time it took for the Metals to travel from Singapore and South America to the UK.
• The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is a futures market. One of its divisions is the COMEX which is engaged in trading operations of buying and selling options and futures of non-ferrous and Precious Metals: gold, silver, aluminium, copper and others. Approximately 15 thousand exchange transactions with Metals are executed at NYMEX annually.
• The Shanghai Gold Exchange is the largest and one of the leading platforms of Precious Metals trading in the world. Founded in 2002 it has the status of a non-profit organization, and both Chinese companies as well as foreign banks have the right to participate. Precious Metals trading is carried out mainly with options and futures on gold bullions.

At the end of 2016, the trading volume of gold exceeded 24.3 tons. The Shanghai Stock Exchange does not determine world prices for gold, but instead uses quotes set in London and New York.

You can open any Precious Metals page to scroll through a live chart, discover actual Bid and Ask prices, the historical performance as well as asset volatility. This information can be used to make informed Metals trading decisions.