(Kitco News) – Commodity prices were down ahead of the Fed’s Jackson Hole summit, with gold hitting a four-week low. And one economist thinks the Venezuelan government might be behind gold’s current range.

The “seller” who stopped the gold market several times over the course of the past several weeks at the $1,350-$1,355 level remains, said Dennis Gartman in his Thursday newsletter.  “[W]e are more and more convinced that, that seller is the Venezuelan government and further because the economic conditions there are deteriorating as quickly and as badly as they are, that ‘seller’ has no choice but to lower its target,” he explained.

He added, “The ‘seller’ yesterday morning was massive as 10 thousand+ COMEX futures were sold about an hour after The Gartman Letter was sent to our clients around the world, breaking trend line support for dollar/gold in the process. We fear another attack upon gold ahead of Dr. Yellen’s comments tomorrow and shall not be surprised if the support at $1,320 is taken out later today. Indeed, we’ll be pleasantly surprised if it is not.”

Spot gold was nearly flat $1,323.10 an ounce, while U.S. gold futures for December delivery were down $3.40 an ounce at $1,326.20.

“Scanning across the commodity markets, only orange juice is trading higher. The commodity world has indeed gone ‘red,’ with the average of the two broad commodity market indices having fallen 1.0%,” Gartman added.

By Daniela Cambone of Kitco News; dcambone@kitco.com
Follow @DanielaCambone