[Au Price] US Scrap Gold prices plummet in line with Gold Futures

UNITED KINGDOM July 21 2015 7:15 PM

NEW YORK (Scrap Register): United States gold scrap prices plummeted on Monday in line with gold futures prices at New York Mercantile Exchange.

Gold futures prices at New York Mercantile Exchange fell for an eight straight session Monday, as data showing China’s gold reserves at half what the market expected helped push prices to their lowest level in more than five years.

The major gold scrap commodities on the Scrap Register Price Index traded lower on Monday. The 9ct hallmarked gold scrap prices rose to $401.798 an ounce and 14ct hallmarked gold scrap prices declined to $626.805 an ounce. The 18ct hallmarked gold scrap and 22ct hallmarked gold scrap prices also down at $803.596 ounce and $981.459 an ounce respectively.

According to Scrap Register Price Index, the 9ct non-hallmarked gold scrap prices dropped to $380.051 an ounce and 14ct non-hallmarked gold scrap prices down to $592.88 an ounce on Monday. The 18ct non-hallmarked gold scrap and 22ct non-hallmarked gold scrap prices are also traded down to $760.103 an ounce and $928.339 an ounce respectively.

August gold has dropped $25.10 or 2.2% to settle at $1,106.80 an ounce on Comex, after briefly trading as low as $1,080. Prices, which fell over the past seven sessions in a row, haven’t settled at levels this low since March 30, 2010, based on the most-active contracts.

Gold futures prices at New York Mercantile Exchange settled down as a sudden bout of selling across Shanghai and New York markets during the illiquid early Asian trading hours triggered a mini flash crash, deepening bullion's biggest rout in years.

A wave of sell orders in a one-minute period shortly after the Shanghai Gold Exchange opened on Monday sent the most-active U.S. gold futures contract down $48 to as low as $1,080 per ounce, its weakest since February 2010. Within two minutes, an estimated 33 tons of gold in Shanghai and New York worth $1.3 billion changed hands.

A lack of liquidity, with Japanese markets closed for a holiday, hastened the slide. The ferocious selling triggered CME circuit breakers twice within one minute on Sunday. The exact cause of the selling was not immediately known, but traders attributed the massive move to high-frequency trading algorithms as well as stop-loss selling.

Latter Prices recouped some losses by the end of trading in New York, but the latest slide helped wipe out half the gains from the last decade's historic bull run, taking prices back to a key chart level and threatening a break towards $1,000 an ounce.