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Central banks are still adding gold to their reserves, says Commerzbank, citing data compiled by the International Monetary Fund. Some of the biggest buyers in March were Turkey (17 tonnes) and Kazakhstan (over five tonnes), Commerzbank says. By contrast, Argentina reduced its gold reserves by nearly seven tonnes tons, the bank points out. “Last week already saw the Chinese central bank report further gold purchases,” Commerzbank says. “Russia is also likely to have purchased more gold in March. The relevant data will be published shortly.”

· TD Securities sees potential for investors to increase allocations to gold even though the yellow metal has not been able to benefit lately from a seemingly dovish Federal Reserve. “With many in the market dismayed and pondering what it will take to move gold past $1,350/oz, if an uber-dovish Fed can't do the job, we see interest growing from both the official sector and money managers in the cards,” TDS says. “Growing risks that central banks may again need to follow a nonconventional monetary policy path, when the economy heads south, [are] additional fodder for the view that private-asset allocations would follow the official sector in increasing their allocations to gold and precious metals. For now, prices remain stuck in recent ranges.”

· Analysts with BMO Capital Markets look for gold to remain range-bound for the foreseeable future, with global exchange-traded-fund holdings remaining “relatively consistent” despite recent price weakness in the yellow metal. “With improving Chinese data, gold does look to be providing some of the funding source for the current risk-on rally,” BMO says. “The spot price has dropped to $1,272/oz, down over 5%from February’s high, and has now been lower for four consecutive weeks. However, while holdings in the largest gold ETF, SPDR Gold Shares, have dropped to a six-month low, overall gold holdings in physically backed ETFs have remained relatively consistent, suggesting macro asset allocators continue to maintain some exposure in the wider risk environment. This points to gold continuing to hold in the relatively tight range we have seen over the past couple of years.”

· Gold prices are coming under increasing pressure, but from an unlikely source. Instead of a runaway rally in the U.S. dollar index, a rapid improvement in China's economic outlook is fueling a move out of the safe havens and into riskier assets. In today's report, we'll look at several data points which show that gold is still subject to selling pressure in the short term. I'll make the case here that a short-term defensive stance on the yellow metal is, therefore, still warranted.

· A new report by S&P Global Market Intelligence predicting that gold production worldwide is likely to set a fresh record in 2019 after a decade of growth in output.

S&P forecasts a 2.3 million ounce increase in gold production to a total of 109.6 million ounces this year – the fastest pace of growth in three years – which researchers say “debunks commentary calling for so-called peak gold.”

The world’s gold mines now pour 40% more gold than in 2008 and S&P expects production to stay steady for the next two years. By 2022output is likely to decline as falling production from depleted operations over the next several years start outpacing output at new or restarted mines “by as early as 2021.”