Abstract

Conditions governing Gold Price Fluctuations as reflected in Market Reports

The expansion of gold trading facilities and the change in the monetary role of gold have simultaneously brought reporting on the international gold market more into the foreground of interest of investors, hoarders, speculators and processors. For preparing their market decisions, they expect reliable reports on conditions affecting the trend of the gold price, on supply and demand components, substitute markets and opinionforming events, Gold market reporters take these information needs into account by publishing reports on the market as a whole or on sub-markets, on balances of payments on gold account, on forms of trading and the current gold market situation. They use as basic information the results of gold movements accounts, that is, the trend of annual production, distribution and consumption of physical gold, explanatory models of functional interrelationships on the gold market and - especially for day-to-day reports - the statements of important market paticipants. The article shows that precisely the utilization of this information via opinion transfer mechanisms, possible forgetting processes or dissemination of tendentious news items is problematical. A further section of the article deals with methodological difficulties of gold market reporting. Its need for convincing formulations should not be satisfied by resorting to monocausal explanations or even unrealistic interlinking of trend assumptions or exaggerated extrapolations. On the contrary, it would enhance the information value of reports, if, for instance, conditions affecting gold pricing were weighted, substitution markets and time lags of supply and demand were included, and aggregates from statistical sources were analysed to suit the problem concerned. The author rounds off his statements with an explanation of gold threshold prices.