Precious metals were taking a bashing even before the release of Friday’s better-than-expected Non-Farm Payroll report. While other markets traded in narrow ranges ahead of the data, gold and silver sold off sharply. They plunged further after the numbers were released, as higher payrolls and an unexpected uptick in Average Hourly Earnings saw the US dollar and...
This year may have seen some long-overdue positivity to precious metals, but the last three weeks have not been kind to the bulls. Today’s slump looks like it has done huge damage to many leveraged buyers, forcing them out of long-held positions. Sentiment has taken a real bashing, to gold holders certainly, but even more so for silver bulls, many who must have...
Crude finally found some support yesterday, bringing to an end a five-session run of back-to-back losses. Just over a week ago, front-month WTI was closing in on $80.50, trading at its highest level since the beginning of May, and appearing to break out of a month-long trading range. But it then reversed sharply, and went on to fall 10% over the following week....
Yesterday saw another swingy session for US stock indices. All the majors began the day on the backfoot, but subsequently recovered their poise to end near their highs. They were all a touch firmer this morning, with the S&P 500 back above 5,300 in early trade. That places the index within 50 points, or 1%, of its record intra-day high from a fortnight ago. Could...
Gold and silver are both feeling the heat today, as sellers have piled in to drive prices lower. The move has seen gold give back most of yesterday’s gains, although it continues to trade north of $2,300. It appears to be finding support at current levels ($2,320-$2,330), but should it break below here, the area around $2,300 also acted as support earlier this...
Crude prices are softer again this morning, with the market continuing with the weakness we saw in the latter half of last week. Yesterday, meetings between OPEC and OPEC+ members concluded much as expected, with the groups agreeing to extend their existing production cuts into next year. The extended output cuts include those voluntary ones agreed by Saudi Arabia...
US stock indices were drifting lower ahead of Friday’s key Core PCE inflation update. On Thursday, the mid-cap domestically focused Russell 2000 had bucked a negative trend across the major indices. This was another indication that investors are shifting some money out of many of the growth stocks that have led this year’s rally, and into value stocks which look...
Both Brent and WTI continue to frustrate investors. Last week saw both contracts break below significant support in a move which suggested further weakness to come. But prices reversed sharply and rallied back above resistance yesterday, signalling the likelihood of a breakout through the top of a range which has been building since the beginning of this month....
Gold was lower first thing this morning, and had given back most of its gains from Monday and Tuesday. It appeared to have found decent support this week following last week’s aggressive sell-off which saw the metal slump from a record high of $2,450 last Monday to $2,325 by Friday morning. But it still remains some way below $2,400, and even further away from the...
Crude oil has put in quite a turnaround over the last couple of trading sessions. At the end of last week, Brent and WTI had sliced through support and looked as if they were set to head lower. Both had broken down through the lower ends of their respective trading ranges that had been building since the beginning of this month. But prices suddenly turned higher...
Gold was a touch firmer this morning, but it’s hard to say if the price has found a floor yet. It’s been a bad week for the precious metal, even though it rallied on Monday to hit a record intra-day, and closing, high. Since then it’s been all downhill, and sharply. This morning it traded at $2,325 which represented a decline of 5% from Monday’s high. The move has...
Crude oil bounced sharply in early trade this morning, recovering all of yesterday’s losses at one stage. Prices rallied off the lower end of support and pushed back into the trading range which has been building since the beginning of this month. As far as front-month WTI is concerned, there’s a fairly well defined range with the area around $77.00 marking the...
NVIDIA will report its latest earnings and revenues after tonight’s close. The ‘NVIDIA Effect’ has been a feature of the earnings season for about a year now. The semiconductor company is at the forefront of developments in generative AI and is critical in building the infrastructure required to power this technology. It has repeatedly surprised investors by...
Yesterday morning, crude oil was retesting the upper level of a trading range which has been building since the beginning of this month. This meant that it was also continuing to consolidate with front-month WTI trading within a rough range of $80 to $77.50. The MACD on the daily charts for both WTI and Brent showed that downside momentum was flattening out, and...
Gold topped $2,450 overnight to hit a fresh record intra-day high. The move follows on from last week’s gains which were marked by a series of higher highs and higher lows. Five weeks ago, gold shot higher in thin Asian Pacific trade to hit a then-record of $2,430. But this proved unsustainable and prices fell back quickly and then took several weeks to find a...
Gold was a touch firmer in early trade on Friday. Its path towards a fresh record high has certainly been bumpier than it was during the two month rally from mid-February. Back then, gold pushed ahead in a steady and relentless fashion, with a healthy period of consolidation in March. But the last month has seen some heavy setbacks which look likely to have driven...
US stock indices soared yesterday in a move which took both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 to fresh record closing highs. The Dow came within a few points of its own all-time high, falling a tad short of 40,000 this morning. The mid-cap domestically-focused Russell 2000 was also up sharply yesterday, but has since pulled back a touch. It remains around 14% below its...
It’s been a rollercoaster session for precious metals. Both gold and silver were firmer this morning. Gold built on yesterday’s gains and looked quite a bit healthier than it did on Monday. Meanwhile silver was inching closer to $29 per ounce. Less than a fortnight ago, silver had dropped to within a cent of $26, so it has manged to stage an impressive recovery...
