New article in "The West Australian" http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/world/8845922/gold-price-spikes-on-inflation-worry/ "Bullion investor sentiment improved after US regulatory filings confirmed that top hedge fund mangers, such as John Paulson and George Soros, held their big bets on gold in the fourth quarter of last year. "The inflation mentality is beginning to take hold more, and that sparked gold's rise today," said Adam Hewison, president of MarketClub.com. Gold benefited after data showed inflation in Britain jumped to twice the Bank of England's target in January." also, "Silver gained 0.6 per cent to $30.78 an ounce. Holdings of the world's largest silver-backed ETF, New York's iShares Silver Trust, rose on Monday by 22.78 tonnes, their biggest one-day rise since Jan. 24. US filings showed that hedge funds largely shed positions in the No. 1 silver ETF in the fourth quarter. The gold-silver ratio - the number of silver ounces needed to buy an ounce of gold - held below 45, a key area near its lowest level in five years, despite gold's outperformance over silver overnight. Gold was on track for a third week of gains, recovering from the losses it made in January, when rising appetite for risk fuelled buying of higher-yielding assets. "Some risk aversion has returned - some euro zone jitters with WestLB and ECB buying of Portuguese bonds last week, and the unsettled Middle Eastern situation," said Credit Agricole analyst Robin Bhar. Some analysts called gold's rally a technical breakout as bullion broke above key resistance at its 50-day and 100-day moving averages. MarketClub's Hewison said his technical models showed that a buy signal was triggered when prices rose above $1368 an ounce, after breaching the 100-day moving average at $1365." and, "ETF Securities, a provider of exchange-traded funds backed by physical metal, and asset manager BlackRock estimated that investors pulled just over $2 billion from commodity exchange-traded products in January."
