Senior Trader Daily Update 22 May 2017

Good morning everyone and I trust you had a good weekend.
 
Choppy, volatile trade was seen across the precious metals complex to close out the week with gold and silver discounting the continuing rebound in US equities and instead taking their lead from a weaker US Dollar Index, to finish firmer on the week. Palladium, which had proved the stellar performer of the complex (in the face of weakness across gold, silver and platinum) spent the week backpedalling.
 
US domestic political flux, geopolitical tensions, economic data releases and the probability of a US Federal Reserve rate hike in June all remained in investor’s crosshairs.
 
Friday’s release of the CFTC Commitments of Traders Report (as at May 16th) showed:
 
·         Continuing significant long liquidation AND short selling by non-commercial speculative participants in gold
 
·         Continuing heavy short selling in silver, however the lower levels provided the opportunity for ‘bargain hunting’ for non-commercial speculators as they dipped their toes back in from the long side.
 
·         Modest short covering in platinum.
 
·         Modest long liquidation and short selling in palladium.

There is little on the economic date release front this week so US domestic politics and geopolitics will likely continue to show the way.
 
The technical picture still remains clouded but on balance it would appear dips will likely be supported by scale-down buying.
 
Good luck and have a good week ahead.
 
Regards,
Andre