Gold sentiment shift? Hedge fund bets highest in 6 months

With gold cracking through the 1,400 usd barrier after Friday’s rally, hedge funds are betting more on the precious metal than they have in the last six months.

Certain lingering clouds over the US economic recovery, strong physical demand from Asia, Federal Reserve dithering, and relative calm in gold ETFs all seem to be adding shine to gold sentiment, with short contracts falling “for a second week and to their lowest since Feb. 12,” according to Bloomberg.

The duration of gold’s climb could very well be cut short by a healing global economy, but for the moment gold, and the asset class to which it belongs, has caught the attention of analysts:

“If [Fed bond purchase] tapering does occur in September, it will be more ‘buy the rumor, sell the fact.’ Certainly the entire market is expecting it already…we’ll see gold prices continue to rise quite strongly over the next couple of months,” according to Compass Global Markets CEO Andrew Su, quoted on CNBC last week.

“If you look at all the various asset classes, the U.S. equities are at all-time highs…commodities is the only asset class that’s underperformed so I see value in that,” said Kelly Teoh at IG Markets.