国际英语新闻:Gold prices looking towards upside: expert

DUBAI, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- The rising of gold prices has halted near its six-month high last week, said Gerhard Schubert, head of precious metals at Dubai's largest bank Emirates NBD, in his weekly analysis on global commodities published Saturday.

"The gold market consolidated over the course of last week, with prices trading within relatively narrow boundaries," said Schubert. Gold prices closed Friday at 1,772.00 U.S. dollars per ounce, up by 2.00 dollars from last week. "The low trades were noted in the high 1,750's, while a high of 1,788 dollars was reached last Friday, before closing for the week nearly unchanged, " he added.

For the coming weeks, Schubert predicted the gold market will remain bullish. "The market, it seems, is still very much looking towards the upside but the amassing of long positions from long term holders and from short term speculative participants make us wary of a short term: It is a wash out," said Schubert.

Rising gold prices usually reflect fears of a global political instability as investors prefer to escape into gold as a safe haven in order to preserve their capital. Current instabilities are the risk of an escalation of the gold miners' strike in South Africa, a break-up of the 17-member states comprising Euro zone, the ongoing civil war in Syria and the threat of a war between Israel and Iran over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

"It looks like everybody who has any reason wanting to be long is already long and the question is who or what will be the spark to initiate even more follow-on buying at this stage," added Schubert.

Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, regarded as the trigger of the current Euro zone debt crisis, gold prices have soared by 142 percent.