Ouro

With gold prices booming across the board, gold futures have continued their progression, taking inflation of their value up 16 per cent from the end of last year.

Finishing 2006 at around $640 per ounce, an 11 per cent rise in the last month alone has allowed gold futures to surge ahead, rallying more than two per cent early yesterday (September 20th) as the dollar weakened yet further.Both spot gold and gold futures prices are highly linked to the rise and fall of the dollar, with a weaker US currency leading to inflationary concern and subsequent flurries of investment in the gold market.

Falling to its lowest ever level against the euro, $1.40 was yesterday reached for €1, with a further psychological blow sustained by the US dollar falling to parity with the Canadian dollar.

This rapid descent in dollar value has led to a rush to invest in gold and gold futures, with figures for December delivery continuing to match the relentless rise of spot gold prices.Factors such as a weakening dollar have in fact allowed gold futures to attain a session peak this week of $746.40, a 28-year high which will continue to inspire bullishness in the gold market.

What form does my gold take ?
The New York (USA) vault stores both 100 troy oz (~ 3.1 kg) and 1 kg bars. They have a minimum assayed purity of 99.5%. Your gold balance on BullionVault consists of the 100% pure content of those bars, which is calculated by multiplying each bar's gross weight by its measured purity.

These bars are the good delivery form for NYMEX/Comex [Comex] futures, although Via Mat is not itself a Comex depository. The main liquidity in gold markets in the USA is in Comex futures, not in physical bullion, so it is important for our vaults to be able to take and make delivery in the form acceptable to Comex.

Even though gold trading in the USA is substantially oriented toward futures BullionVault gold is always physical.