GOLD PRICE

Spot palladium prices are seeing a sharp rise in early action today. Just a few short weeks ago, palladium pushed past gold to become the most precious of the precious metals. The metal now appears to be looking to extend its lead.

Gold and currencies had a rocky day of trading yesterday around the Brexit vote. Theresa May’s Brexit proposal was shot down, a no confidence vote was called was called by Jeremy Corbyn, and a Brexit deal is nowhere in sight.

Gold prices have held steady following the Labor Department’s Producer Price Index report (PPI) which fell 0.2% in December after a 0.1% rise in November. The PPI is used as a key measure of inflation in the US economy, and the most recent report indicates the biggest drop since August 2016.

The Empire State Manufacturing Index dropped 7.6 points to 3.9 in January according to the New York Federal Reserve’s report on Tuesday. The reading is drastically below the projected increase forecast to take the index up to 12.

Happy Monday, traders. Welcome back from an excellent football weekend. Spot price for gold is back above $1290/oz this morning, showing strong resistance at that level after fading in the early New York sessions from highs north of $1295 that we reached in overnight trading.

Recent trade data out of China is once again behind early declines in stocks today. The Benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly one percent in early action. Overnight, China announced that its trade surplus with Washington was the highest in a decade.

Despite some action in the developing macroeconomic stories connected to precious metals and other related markets—the continuing drama of the US government shutdown and Trump’s wall, developing views of the Fed’s policy path moving into 2019, a new deadline set in Brexit negotiations within the UK government-- gold has done some pretty range-bound trading this week.

Falling energy prices have contributed to a cool down in inflation, but the so-called core consumer price index which excludes volatile food and energy prices held firm, pointing to overall stability.

The British economy slowed down in Q3 with the biggest drop in industrial production since 2012 led by a decline in the car manufacturing industry.

Now that we’ve all awoken from our turkey and nog-laden comas and started getting those trading legs back under us to start the year, it’s time to have a look ahead at what macroeconomic stories are most likely to have in impact on precious metals markets in 2019.

Initial jobless claims were lower than expected with a total of 216,000 claims compared to a forecast 225,000, pointing to a healthy labor market in the face of economic uncertainty in other sectors.

The minutes of the ECB Governing Council Meeting held on December 12-13 2018 were released today, with a number of the main points highlighted below.