Gold price to hit US$2,000 by year end
Gold price is expected to hover at around US$2,000 per ounce this year, putting Poh Kong Holdings Bhd on track for a strong financial year, executive director Ermin Siow said.
“Most analysts so far have predicted that there will be a slight increase (in gold price) in 2022, with a year-end target of around US$2,000 per ounce.
“This is assuming there is no unpredictable black swan event happening,” Siow told reporters after Poh Kong’s annual general meeting today.
Gold price ended the final day of 2021 on a bullish note last Friday, at the strongest levels in six weeks at US$1,830 an ounce, according to FXStreet.
But overall, after a tumultuous start to Covid-19 that drove gold to record levels in 2020, the metal famously touted as a hedge against rising prices failed to capitalise on last year’s scorching-hot inflation.
Gold price booked the worst year in 2021 since 2015 amid fading coronavirus fears and expectations of monetary policy normalisation by major global central bankers in the year to come.
The metal started out the first trading day of 2022 on the wrong footing, as investors took profits off the table ahead of a busy week, full of top-tier US economic events.
Its price emains depressed around intraday low close to US$1,825, down 0.25 per cent intraday during early Monday’s trading.
Meanwhile, Poh Kong executive chairman and group managing director Datuk Choon Yee Seiong expects the company to be on a better footing in the financial year ending July 31, 2022 (FY22), driven by improving demand as Malaysia’s economy recovered.
“We are on track for a strong but predictably uneven growth. The group is poised to stage a robust post-recession recovery. It has been, for all of us, an unprecedented reality and I am happy to report that Poh Kong is well prepared for the next ‘new normal’.
“It has been a challenging time for all corporations. I am fully aware that economic and financial predictions are but extrapolations of present trends. And we need to plan on an incremental basis, rather than hold a long-term view,” Choon said.
Poh Kong business development manager Edison Choon said the company was not planning to add any more outlets so soon.
“We just opened a new outlet in Pavilion Bukit Jalil on December 3, 2021, pushing our total outlets to 89. For this year, we do not have any expansion plan yet. We will make the announcement once we have any firm plans,” he added.
Poh Kong’s net profit increased 50.5 per cent to RM36.76 million in FY21 from the RM24.43 million recorded in FY20. Group revenue rose 20.6 per cent to RM903.1 million from RM748.8 million.
NST
