Gold futures closed out the week with modest daily gains. As of 4:15 PM ET, the most active February futures contract is up $10 (0.49%) and fixed at $2031.60. Gold futures opened at $2027.40, traded to a high of $2044.90, and a low of $2022.20. The sharp declines on Tuesday and Wednesday resulted in a weekly decline. Trading activity over those two days resulted in a drop of $44.80. 

Gold futures hit an intraday low of $2004.60 yesterday and closed just off of that low at $2006.50. The $23 decline was largely in response to the retail sales report which revealed that consumer sales rose by 0.6% month over month in December. This would be the second consecutive day of strong price declines in gold. 

The United States Census Bureau released the advanced monthly sales report for December today, revealing that US retail sales rose 0.6% month over month in December 2023. The actual numbers came in line with economists’ forecasts that were predicting a 0.4% growth last month.

Recent comments by multiple officials of the Federal Reserve have forced overly optimistic analysts and market participants to have a more realistic viewpoint of the timing and depth of interest rate cuts this year.

An Interview with Ivan Bayoukhi of Wall Street Silver and myself, on the WallStreetSilver channel. We delve into the complexities of the silver and gold markets in the context of current economic projections, interest rates, and the Federal Reserve's policies.

The United States and Britain launched airstrikes across Yemen beginning yesterday, attacking 16 locations, and striking 60 military targets in an attempt to stifle more drone attacks on merchant ships. Recently, there have been multiple unsuccessful drone attacks that have targeted merchant ships in the southern Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis, an Iranian-backed military group.

Today a government report confirmed what consumers, especially those on fixed incomes have felt as they paid for essential goods and services such as food, shelter, and energy, and that is that costs continue to rise.

Market participants are focusing on tomorrow’s latest data on inflation, which will be followed by the PPI (Producer Price Index) report on Friday. Economists are forecasting that headline inflation has increased and projected a rise of 0.2% in December, which would take inflation year-over-year from 3% to 3.2%.

As of 4:43 PM ET gold futures basis the most active February contract is trading higher by $2.50 or 0.12% and fixed at $2036. Concurrently the dollar is also up fractionally, yielding gains today of 0.21% taking the dollar index to 102.521.

This morning the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the nonfarm payroll employment report for December at 8:30 AM ET. There was an immediate and strong knee-jerk reaction to this report’s release.