Commodity Online
MUMBAI: Gold futures prices in India’s commodity exchanges zoomed on Friday as rupee got weak amidst volatile stock markets in the country. Gold futures February contract price at India’s largest Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) traded at a record high of Rupees 14,448 for ten grams.

Analysts who have been following gold futures prices in the Indian markets said that the yellow metal could gatecrash through the Rupees 15,000 level next week. “Gold is the hottest commodity where the action is on in the Indian commodity market. Gold will continue to rise in the futures and spot markets in India because of weak rupee and meltdown sentiments from across the globe,” Pallav Sinha, a bullion analyst in Mumbai said.

He said there are six gold futures contracts at MCX, and all these contracts are at or above the Rs 14000 mark. “Investors who had booked gold for Rs 12000 so on in the last two months are reaping in profits,” Sinha told Commodity Online.

Trading in bullion contracts contributed Rs 2,023,441 crore to the total turnover of India’s commodity exchanges during the first nine months of the current fiscal, according to a data from the commodity market regulator Foward Markets Commission (FMC).

In the spot market on Friday, gold traded around Rupees 14,000 level. While gold prices have been going up in the Indian market for some months now, sales of the yellow metal have come down thanks to the high prices. Imports of gold in India, the world’s largest importer and consumer of gold in the world, also crashed in January by 90% thanks to the rising global price in the yellow metal.

Dollar demand for gold reached an all time quarterly record of US$32bn in December of2008 as investors around the world sought refuge from the global financial meltdown, and jewellery buyers returned to the market in droves on a lower gold price.