GOLD PRICE

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.

Chinese inflation data came in lower than expected in the wake of the end of three days of trade negotiations between the US and China, negatively impacting the Asian markets and signalling an economic slowdown overall in China.

The FOMC this afternoon released the meeting minutes that cover its two-day meeting and corresponding rate hike and publication of economic projections. As was widely expected, the minutes reaffirm the perception of December’s 25 basis-point increase to short-term lending rates as a “dovish hike.”

The Perth Mint recently reported that gold sales took a nosedive for the month of December. The mint reported a whopping 55% month-over-month decline in sales for the lowest total since June 2018.

Mortgage rates have increased significantly thanks to a drop in interest rates last week with a 23.5% increase in applications for the week ending January 4 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.