Metals Stocks: Gold price tops $1,800 for first time since February
By May 6, 2021 58 views
Gold prices climbed on Thursday, lifting the commodity above the psychologically significant value of $1,800 an ounce for the first time since February, as slipping bond yields and a slightly weaker U.S. dollar offered some support.
The precious metal's rise above the key price mark is "quite something for gold," Ross Norman, chief executive officer at Metals Daily, told MarketWatch.
"Over the last three weeks, it has attempted these levels five times unsuccessfully, which further reinforces the strength of the resistance level," he said. "The key issue is the nominal 10-year Treasury yields has been edging lower and the real yield looks like it is headed back to -1% once again."
Meanwhile, "the sharp move higher in silver through the $27 level will also have given gold confidence to move higher," said Norman.
rose $27.20, or 1.5%, to trade at around $1,811.20 an ounce after trading as high as $1,812.80. Prices for the most-active contract haven't traded or settled above $1,800 since February, FactSet data show.
July silver
SIN21,
SI00,
also added 92 cents, or 3.5% to $27.45 an ounce, with prices on track for their highest finish since late February.
"With gold and silver bulls garnering support from [Federal Reserve] assurances of ongoing low rates overnight and the dollar showing a definitive reversal down, it would appear as if gold is poised" to mark a two-and-a-half month high for the session, analysts at Zaner wrote in a daily note.
"Fed dialogue over the last 36 hours has partially tamped down the rising rate threat" sparked by Treasury Secretary [Janet Yellen's] comments earlier in the week calling for the Fed to act, they said.
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On Wednesday, the precious metal bounced back from a Tuesday decline after Yellen, formerly head of the Federal Reserve, clarified remarks that had been interpreted as advocating for raising interest rates to keep the economy from overheating.
The 10-year Treasury note yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
was lower at around 1.57%, while the U.S. dollar was off 0.4% at 90.964, as measured by the ICE U.S. Dollar Index
-0.39%.
Commodity traders are also parsing the Bank of England's vote that advocated for slowing the pace of continuing government bond purchases "somewhat."
By an 8-to-1 vote, the Bank of England said it would maintain its target for U.K. government bond purchases at £875 billion, with only chief economist Andy Haldane, who is going to be leaving the central bank, voting to reduce the size by £50 billion.
Rounding out action on Comex, prices for July copper
HGN21,
added 1.4% to $4.56 a pound, with most-active contract prices trading at their highest since 2011.
July platinum
PLN21,
rose 1.2% to $1,244.50 an ounce and June palladium
PAM21,
lost 1.1% to $2,940 an ounce.
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