Ross Norman

The annual LBMA precious metals price competition’s top gold forecaster over the years, Sharps Pixley’s Ross Norman, is bucking the mainstream analyst consensus with a $1321 average gold price forecast for 2015.  Silver $18.56, Platinum $1268, Palladium $876.  Slightly modified version of article posted to Mineweb.com – the website for the best global mining and metals news and comment.

Lawrence Williams

In his submissions to this year’s LBMA precious metals forecasting competition, Ross Norman who heads up London bullion broker Sharps Pixley, and who has been probably the most successful forecaster in the LBMA panel in the past, says he is going out on a limb with his forecast for the gold price average this year at $1321. (It would certainly have been out on a limb last month although perhaps seems less so now given the gold price performance so far this year.) He is also looking for a gold price high of $1450 and a low of $1170 during the year. With most of the forecasting panel being bank and institutional analysts, whose forecasts tend to be much more conservative – some would say decidedly bearish – Norman must have a good chance of adding to his wins if gold’s advances continue.  The LBMA is expected to publish its full listing of its annual competition forecasts later this week, along with the analyst participants’ reasons for their predictions.

Norman has been the outright winner of price forecasting sections of the LBMA competition five times in the past  – usually by ‘going out on a limb’ which was a pretty good policy when the gold price was in its bull market phase  Norman has also had numerous Top 10 positions.  Perhaps he tends to favour the more bullish trends so will he be back on track again this year?  If the current momentum in the gold price gathers more strength still his forecasts could even prove conservative but it would perhaps be foolhardy to automatically assume that gold’s good start to the year will not beget a serious correction at some stage later on.

Norman’s stated reasons for his fairly positive predictions on gold this year are as follows: “If markets move on what you don’t know today, but will know tomorrow then it follows that many factors such as a US interest rate rises should already be factored into the current price… it also begs the question what the new drivers for 2015 will be. We see ongoing declines in economic growth prompting central banks to fight deflation by resorting to inflationary pressures in H2.  If our outlook for gold in dollar terms is bullish, in emerging currencies it may be even more so as investors seek to insure or hedge against currency debasement. As such, we foresee good demand for the physical.”

He sees gold already demonstrating that it has turned a corner and sees investor flows returning strongly but reckons there are unlikely to be runaway prices beyond the $1450 level without either significant new product innovations or without the sort of black swan events in the economy that few would wish for, although the potential for these looks ever greater following the SNB’s decision of last week to drop the Swiss Franc peg against the Euro.

He is also fairly bullish on silver, looking for an average price of $18.56 over the year, encompassing a high of $21.75.  In percentage terms these are big rises from the prices prevailing at the beginning of the year.  This is commensurate with the general pattern of silver moving up faster than gold on the upside – and he also reckons that investors will take comfort from silver ETF holdings which have remained firm (unlike gold ETFs) coupled with reported retail sales of the physical – coins and bars -which have also remained robust.

He seems to be a little more sanguine in his views on platinum.  Despite many analysts seeing platinum in serious supply deficit this year, he is looking for a yearly average price at $1268 – somewhat below that of his gold forecast suggesting that at some stage during the year the platinum price will fall back below that of gold as it has now already done on Friday after struggling to stay above the gold price level for most of last week.  He does foresee a high price during the year of $1480 – thus higher than that he sees for gold.

Finally there is palladium – the precious metal probably most supported by analysts in recent months due to what are seen as continuing strong fundamentals.  Norman is looking for an average price over the year here of $876 with a 2015 high reaching $975 as against the price at time of writing of $755.  Palladium was last year’s best performer in the precious metals sector and Ross suggests it may have trouble matching last year’s 10.9% increase, but even so he feels the junior precious metal as having another positive year based on continuing attractive supply/demand fundamentals despite the backdrop of a relatively weak global economy. He also points to an assessment suggesting an ongoing supply deficit in the order of 1.4 million ounces which will keep the metal well bid. Of the four metals, palladium remains once again his favourite, although, on his predictions perhaps gold and silver will do even better!