Pressure continues on gold prices

Pressure continues on gold prices this week, failing to consolidate above the level of $1918 an ounce, after announcing the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting and the rise in the dollar and bond yields. While the minutes of the last meeting of the FOMC showed the continued hawkish tone from many of its members towards carrying out more interest rate hikes this year, despite the temporary pause in last June.

The minutes of the meeting indicated that the temporary pause in raising the interest rate in June was aimed at buying some time and waiting for more economic data to form a clearer perception about the state of the US economy, especially after the banking turmoil that led to the collapse of some regional banks. The minutes also indicated the opposition of some members to the decision to fix the interest rate in June and the tendency to raise it by 25 basis points, in addition to talking about more hikes during the year. This hawkish tone from the Federal Reserve pushed the price of gold to decline to approximately $1915 an ounce, at the height of yesterday’s declines.

The markets are also anticipating today and tomorrow more labor market numbers, which may be decisive for the gold markets. Today, we await the announcement of the initial jobless claims, which are expected to record some increase compared to last week. We are also awaiting today the new job openings (JOLTs) figures, which are expected to come at the lowest levels since last March, and finally we are watching the non-farm payrolls report for tomorrow, as the US economy is expected to add 225K jobs, at the lowest level since last January. In addition to the labor market numbers, today we await the ISM non-manufacturing PMI reading for June which comes after a series of negative figures for manufacturing and services activity around the world raised uncertainty and recession fears.