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...
US stock indices were a tad firmer this morning following on from yesterday’s mixed session. The main takeaway from Monday’s trade was that the Dow finished a touch lower, and so its run of eight successive positive sessions came to an end. Otherwise, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 continue to consolidate, trading sideways and within spitting distance of their...
Gold dropped sharply this morning, giving back all of Friday’s gains and more. Despite this, gold remains comfortably above $2,300 per ounce. In addition, the MACD on the daily chart suggests that the downside momentum which started to accelerate in mid-April, has begun to flatten out. It’s worth noting that gold has given back a lot of its gains over the last...
Crude prices continued to recover this morning having fallen sharply over the past fortnight. On Wednesday front-month WTI dropped below $77 per barrel to hit its lowest level in two months. There has been a bounce since then, which has taken WTI back up towards $80. The MACD on the daily chart is starting to turn up, suggesting that upside momentum is building...
Earlier today gold was, like US stock indices, continuing to trade in a relatively narrow range. But unlike the indices, it was consolidating at lower levels following a sell-off, rather than at higher levels after a rally. Despite this, gold was managing to hold above $2,300. But there was no immediate indication that momentum, as measured by the MACD, had found...
Crude oil fell relentlessly last week, but managed to post a modest gain on Monday. Prices turned lower once again yesterday, and the sell-off has continued this morning. Front-month WTI has now fallen back below $78 per barrel, a level which acted as resistance back in November, January and February. It’s now apparent that it hasn’t offered any support to prices....
All the major US stock indices were firmer on Tuesday, building on gains from the latter half of last week. Investors were relieved to wave goodbye to April which proved to be an unsettling one in terms of increased volatility. Sentiment soured significantly last month, following an uninterrupted rally since the end of October. But US stock indices have had a...
Gold continues to keep traders on their toes as it fails to provide clear signals over future direction. It put in a solid rally from mid-February to mid-April, but has struggled to find a footing since then. In fact, what looked like an entirely reasonable period of consolidation has turned into something more sinister, at least as far as the bulls are concerned....
There were some wild moves across US stock indices last night as investors responded to the Federal Reserve’s FOMC statement and Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s subsequent press conference. The major indices were in negative territory ahead of the rate announcement, but then bounced sharply after the FOMC left rates unchanged as expected, and on the back of a benign...
Yesterday saw a big ‘risk-off’ move across all the major US stock indices. The biggest falls were seen in the tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 and the domestically-focused mid-cap Russell 2000, which ended the day down 2.0% and 2.1% respectively. That was a fitting, if disappointing, end to April for US equities which have struggled to maintain the relentless bullishness...
Gold and silver were sharply lower overnight. While not as violent as last week’s drop, the sell-off has certainly taken the gloss off the positive sentiment which was slowly returning in the latter half of last week. There was some good news early on in that gold traded above $2,300 throughout the morning suggesting that many investors were holding their nerves....
The big news overnight has been the sharp move in the Japanese yen. At the end of last week, following the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) monetary policy meeting, Governor Kazuo Ueda stated that he was quite relaxed about the fall in the yen, as long as it didn’t have a serious impact on the domestic economy or inflation. This came after the USDJPY pushed and held above a...
Asian Pacific indices rallied sharply overnight, although Australia’s ASX 200 moved in the opposite direction on the back of weakness in healthcare and industrials. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) left its key Policy Rate unchanged as expected. But there was some bemusement that BoJ officials seemed relatively unconcerned at the multi-decade weakness of the Japanese yen....
This week, precious metals had their first serious test of the potential downside since this leg of the rally began in mid-February. Gold lost over $100, or around 5%, from last Friday’s high to the low on Tuesday. It now appears to be stabilising back above $2,300. Silver lost close to 8% between the same levels, but it too managed to steady itself yesterday and,...
