Further strength in the metals appears likely.

Gold is in search of a fresh catalyst to return it to recent highs.

In an environment where mine supply is broadly static, central bank sales effectively constrained and scrap supply declining, strong physical demand is genuinely important.

I still want to see this correction find some decent physical demand … Once we can prove that physical demand is actually going to support gold, that will encourage people to take gold higher again.

The risk remains that the rand will be at the higher end of people’s forecasts.

We recognize that prices are above what is justifiable on the basis of supply and demand fundamentals.

People have realized that the dollar is important for gold but it’s not the only factor and you cannot slavishly trade gold just simply because of what’s happening to the dollar.

The outlook for most of the major gold mining companies is for static to lower production for 2006. With the new project pipeline in gold relatively empty and few major discoveries of gold made in...

We believe that all precious metals are trading above fundamentally justified fair value, but the weight of investor, speculator and commodity-index buying has demonstrated that this does not stop metals trading ever-higher.

Both platinum and rhodium remain at or near the highs for this rally and are benefiting from broader metals interest and, in the case of rhodium, apparent genuine shortages.

We believe that investors are likely to interpret this … as being positive for the gold market as it will raise speculation that China will increase its gold holdings.

After the rapid rally in gold over the past few months a correction is almost inevitable at some point and this could be it.

I would say that when buying gold shares, additional risk is taken on compared to buying the metal or a derivative thereon.

We believe the strength of the physical market is vitally important for 2006; even though gold is rising on speculative and investment buying, at some point there will be a reversal of this trend and...

We do not believe that this correction is over and suspect that gold will now consolidate between recent extremes of $545 and $568, with a break of $575 needed to bring back bullish sentiment.

But the other factor is that we have indications that Chinese demand for platinum is recovering despite prices being stable between $845 and $880.

Although we view this as a done deal, the lack of finality in the approval may be holding some investors back. We continue to believe that silver will trade higher from here.

We suspect that technical buying of gold and silver on COMEX (New York) will be triggered by a positive announcement of the silver ETF.

Silver is benefiting from pre-positioning ahead of the expected launch of an exchange-traded fund in silver.

We need to find the level at which underlying physical demand will support gold. Until then, I wouldn’t be comfortable with gold up here, because it’s all investment and speculative money at the moment.

We believe that gold is attempting to find a range with the recent extremes of $535 and $555 likely to confine the metal for a while.

Silver has moved to the fore following the ETF news of the past week and the metal looks set to trade above $10/oz in the near term.

We believe that new-year allocations towards commodities will keep platinum and palladium firm in the near term and see platinum at $1,100/oz and palladium at $300/oz over one month, although we suspect that profit taking...

We had a period of needed consolidation in gold … with rallying base metals, strong silver prices and improving momentum, we can probably go higher.

The level at which physical demand emerges to support the metal will then form a base for gold to make fresh gains.

It seems extremely unlikely that gold doesn’t trade $600 an ounce in the spot market at some time either today or this week.

I do believe that the recent run up in gold has been almost entirely driven by speculative and investment demand as jewelry demand has fallen sharply.

The release of the COTR report tonight is likely to be the final piece of information we need to decide to sell gold,

Base and precious metals are considerably above what we consider to be fair value – based on fundamental supply and demand factors – but events of the past two years have demonstrated that investment and...

We expect that funds held 17-18 million ounces of gross long positions as of Tuesday. If the net long position is more than this then we will become even more bearish; only a release that...

Of course, gold can go higher on investment and speculative demand, but there seems no clear motivation for new money to be committed to gold at this time.

We had a very good run. You have a pullback and correction at some stage and we are in a process to do that at the moment.

Gold looks set to be supported and set to move higher as we approach the anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. and the expectations of an attack on Iraq intensify.

Gold has started 2006 in a positive manner and we suspect that this strength will continue in the near term.

Silver’s recent rally appears to have been driven by intensifying speculation that the proposed ETF will soon gain approval from the SEC, although we have seen no indications on the possible timing.

Gold is trying to establish itself in a range at the moment. The market is looking for fresh direction.

Gold and the other precious metals appear to have found support after the recent sell-off, however, we believe it is too soon to turn bullish on gold specifically.

Platinum has been much more resilient than we expected,