The World Bank has downgraded the forecast for the global economic growth in 2012 down to 2.5%. According to the forecast, the eurozone economy will shrink by 0.3% while the US one will boost by 2.2%. Japan is expected to see its economy growing by 1.9%. China’s economy will grow by 8.4%, India’s one – by 6.5%. No country will avoid a slowdown.
The official stats suggest that the direct investments in China declined in December down to the lowest level since July 2009.
Greece keeps having talks with its private investors, thus trying to avoid a costly and painful default. In the meantime, Germany’s investor confidence index has hit the all-time record. Yesterday Spain sold its bonds to the amount of 4.88B euro with lower yield.
Credit Suisse has downgraded its 2012 forecast for gold from $1850/oz down to $1755/oz. GFMS expects gold to reach $2000/oz in late 2012 – early 2013. China and Turkey are expected to become the main sources of the demand for jewelry in 2012. The central banks are said to reduce their official purchases of gold in the first half of 2012.
The overall decline in the demand for gold will be caused mainly by lower import to India. On Tuesday the Indian authorities increased the duty on gold import by 90% and doubled the tax on silver. According to the BBA report, the import will decline by 50% in early 2012.
Forecast: According to the Department of Commodity Trading of , today gold will probably be retracing or moving in the 1662-1638 range. The price may rally up to 1660-1626, with a rebound down to 1638. If an H1 bar closes above 1668, the price will get an opportunity to rally up to 1697-1700. If an H1 bar closes below 1638, the retracement may become deeper.
As for silver, it will probably be testing 30.35. The test, if any, will probably fail, thus making the price rebound and consolidate in the 30.40-29.75 range. If an H1 bar closes above 30.56, the rally will probably be resumed.
