GoldPrice

The Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes of the meeting ending on November 09 were released today and largely confirmed the outlook that has been subject of much speculation recently, which is that the Federal Reserve are likely to introduce another rate hike in December with nearly all meeting participants agreeing on that point.

The annual core Personal Consumption and Expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, rose 0.1% annually and 1.8% monthly in October, slightly short of the expected readings in both cases.

US personal income and consumer spending surpassed growth estimates last month, growing 0.5% in October instead of the projected 0.4%, with a 0.2% jump seen the month prior.

The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits during the week of Thanksgiving saw a sharp rise to 234,000. This figure represented a rise of 10,000 claims from the week before and was also the third straight weekly increase.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made a statement today saying that the benchmark interest rate laid out by the central bank is near a neutral level, perhaps indicating that the central bank will moderate rate hikes accordingly.

New home sales in the US plummeted almost 9% last month according to today’s report released jointly by the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development, with rising costs of borrowing seeing sales drop to the lowest rate since March 2016.

The Case-Shiller S&P Index report released today shows that home prices have sunk to their lowest since January 2017, with rising interest rates impacting housing demand.

Gold has given up its earlier gains and is now trading moderately lower in mid-am action. Prices are currently down $10 per ounce at $1211.60. The dollar has moved up to the high of the day, and remains within earshot of recent 1.5 year highs.

Gold prices are inching slightly higher to kick off the new trading as crude oil and stocks attempt to rebound while the dollar loses steam. This week will likely see a return to more normal trading volumes as investors look to position themselves going into the end of the year.

As we make our way through Monday morning stateside, things are looking pretty rosy (unless you’re overweight crypto) compared to how we left them last week: crude oil seems to finally be finding support, overseas markets had a positive session as futures trading for the US markets is also pointing up, the UK and EU-27 have managed to formally agree on a Brexit package and as a bonus the Italian government seems to be backing down from threatening to cause another Greek-style confrontation with the EU.

Happy Friday, traders. (*hiccup*) What kind of (*turkey burp*) week has it been? Thankfully it’s been a mild week of gold trading, and I hope you all have been able to take advantage of that and enjoy your Thanksgiving week with a lot of friends and family, and a least a little bit of over indulgence. (*wipes gravy-mouth*) I certainly did.

The Flash US Composite PMI data from IHS Markit has shown a moderate slowdown in growth in the services industry which is nevertheless described as healthy with a reading of 54.4 compared to last month’s 54.8.