Gold continues to be the talk of the town after reaching new highs on Monday. The mania that helped carry the price all the way up past $2140 was short lived, bulls ran out of steam and gold closed the day around $2029 an ounce. The timing of the move probably had something to do with it, being in the early hours of the Asian trading session would not have contributed the greatest amount of liquidity to the market. Tuesday offered no answers as gold lost another half a percent to close around $2020 by the day’s close.
It has been a strong week so far for the Dollar, the DXY gaining almost a whole point over the last two sessions to flirt with 104. This despite job openings in the US unexpectedly decreasing to 8.73M versus the 9.3M consensus. Of course, this is not the last we’ll hear from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this week; Nonfarm Payrolls come in on Friday, hopefully providing a clearer picture than the mixed messages markets are trying to interpret currently. We also have jobless claims on Thursday from the Department of Labor to complete the picture.
Oil can’t seem to find any kind of floor recently. It is down over $5 in the last four sessions alone, Brent crude closing at $77 a barrel on Tuesday, WTI down to $72. US production continues to hit fresh highs, OPEC targets may as well not exist and global demand remains defiantly absent. With all this in mind the recent price action isn’t surprising many.
