Gold held near three-month lows near 1,825 USD per ounce on Friday and is falling for the fourth week in a row from 1990 USD.
One factor for the decline in gold prices could be the strengthening U.S. dollar, which seems to have stabilized near the 20-year high reached on Thursday. The USD strengthening may have followed the release of US consumer and producer inflation data, which seems to reinforce expectations of aggressive interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. This, in turn, may raise concerns about a weaker global economic outlook, helping to boost USD demand.
Recall that the U.S. core CPI remained near a 40-year high of 8.3 percent in April, while the core CPI also exceeded expectations at 6.2 percent, fueling fears that high price levels may persist. Thus, markets are anticipating increases of 50 basis points at each of the next two Fed meetings in June and July.
This could also be significant for the EUR/USD major pair, which approached the 1.0350 level this week, its lowest level since December 2016. The recent strengthening of the USD may also be related to the divergence in monetary policy on both sides of the Atlantic. The Fed is moving towards aggressive hikes, while the European Central Bank may raise interest rates by 50-75 basis points in total by the end of the year. Thus, the scale of divergences seems to be very large.
In addition to gold and the dollar, attention should again turn to the cryptocurrency market and towards stock market indices, where in both cases an attempt to defend against possible further declines may be underway. Bitcoin rebounded yesterday from its lowest level in almost 17 months and crossed the $30,000 mark today. Despite this, the world's most popular and widely used cryptocurrency is at this point on its way to its worst week in four months, falling more than 10 percent. Yesterday, the market additionally saw a likely panic as the tether to USD exchange rate departed at 1:1. At the apogee of fears for the collapse of the largest stablecoin, the cryptocurrency market seemed to have reached its weekly lows. Currently, USDT is trying to get back to the 1:1 exchange rate, and the rest of the market seems to be stabilizing.
Daniel Kostecki, Director of the Polish branch of Conotoxia Ltd. (Forex service)
Materials, analysis and opinions contained, referenced or provided herein are intended solely for informational and educational purposes. Personal opinion of the author does not represent and should not be constructed as a statement or an investment advice made by Conotoxia Ltd. All indiscriminate reliance on illustrative or informational materials may lead to losses. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
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