Spot Gold Jumps $20 to $1211 as Weak US Data Sink Dollar, Silver Hits 5-Week High
SPOT GOLD prices jumped to 2-week Dollar highs Wednesday lunchtime in London, gaining nearly $20 per ounce from overnight trade in Asia as the world's No.1 reserve currency fell hard following weak US consumer data.
Retail sales flatlined in April from March, the US Department of Commerce said, even as the price of imported goods slipped 0.3%.
Gold quoted in spot trade jumped $10 on the news, rising further to $1211 per ounce as the Dollar fell towards last week's 2.5-month lows on the FX market.
"Since the March high at $1220," says a technical analysis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, "gold has been caught in a well-defined, choppy range between $1166-1209.
"While this range can extend in the short term," BAML says, "odds favor a bullish resolution for a test & break of the 200-day moving average at $1216 ahead of a move towards $1307/1345."
Silver today broke above its average price of the last 200 days, jumping through $17.00 per ounce to hit 5-week highs against the US Dollar.
Eurozone stock markets rose for the first day this week as bond prices bounced from the recent sell-off.
New data meantime showed Greece back in recession in Q1, while the "big four" Eurozone economies of Germany, France, Italy and Spain all grew together for the first time since early 2010.
Commodity prices rose less dramatically than spot gold, adding 0.4% to the Reuters/Jefferies CRB index.
"Like gold," said a note from global investment and London bullion bank HSBC on Tuesday, "silver is inversely correlated to the US Dollar, and USD strength has weighed on silver prices."
Australia's Macquarie Bank today trimmed all its precious metals forecasts, cutting gold some 3% to $1231 per ounce as part of a broader review, on expectations of firming anticipation of a September rate hike from the US Federal Reserve.
Analysts at Canada's RBC, in contrast, last week repeated their 2015 average call of $1250 because they expect gold to strengthen after a Fed rate hike in the back-half of the year.
That same "sell the rumor, buy the fact" prediction also made recently by London-based consultancies Metals Focus and Thomson Reuters GFMS.