The gold bulls looked like they had plenty more running to do Tuesday afternoon after the yellow metal shattered its previous all-time high price earlier in the day.
Gold was at $2,464 per ounce in midday trading, up $42.40 and edging toward a 2% gain on the day. Earlier Tuesday, the commodity zoomed past its previous all-time high of $2,450 per ounce set on May 20.
Gold’s record run began on Monday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told the Economic Club in Washington that the central bank won’t wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates.
Powell’s dovish remarks came about as close to a sure thing as it gets on Wall Street that the Fed would soon move to trim interest rates. Traders were confident enough by Tuesday morning to project between a 98% to 100% likelihood that policymakers would cut rates when they meet in September.
The market got another boost earlier Tuesday with a report on retail sales from the U.S. Census Bureau that pointed to an economy that was getting back on track. The upbeat data found that U.S. retail sales were unchanged in June from the previous month – results that beat Wall Street expectations of a 0.4% decline – and had increased 2.3% above June 2023.
Additionally, gold’s bull run appeared unfazed by a report Tuesday from the National Association of Home Builders showing builder confidence in the market for single-family housing dipping to 42 in July, the lowest reading since December 2023. Even though investors estimated the index to come in at 44, the NAHB explained that home buyers and builders were projecting that interest rates would come down later this year as inflation continues to cool.
“The economy is in pretty good shape,” Comerica Bank chief economist Bill Adams told Reuters. “There are signs of softness around the edges where low- and moderate-income consumers are pulling back ... but open-handed spending by affluent consumers is keeping the economy as a whole moving forward.”
Gold Price Chart
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