Gold rallies from 2-1/2 wk low; eyes on Fed meeting
Spot gold rose 0.5 percent to $1,662.96 an ounce by 1346 GMT, recovering from Monday's 2-1/2 week low of $1,651.93. U.S. gold futures for February delivery were up 0.6 percent to $1,662.20.
Market players were looking to the Fed decision and statement on Wednesday for any signs that a recent run of positive economic data had encouraged policymakers to consider changing its easing policy.
"After the losses of the past few days, there is some buying interest ... we are likely to keep seeing some buying on the dips but not strong enough to support a decisive push higher," Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg said.
Loose monetary policy helped drive gold to a 12th year of gains in 2012 as investors worried about currency debasement as a result of rampant cash printing by central banks. Most analysts do not expect the Fed to curtail its bond-buying programme any time soon.
"The U.S. Fed meeting may show the central bank continuing with bond purchases to support the nation's recovery," broker SP Angel said in a note.
U.S. non-farm payrolls data on Friday will also be examined for clues on the state of the world's largest economy, and positive numbers could lead to a more dovish Fed stance on monetary easing, analysts said.
Gold “May Be Preparing for Further Falls”, But Central Banks Easing Implies “Upward Trend” for Bullion
London Gold Market Report
U.S. DOLLAR gold bullion prices continued falling during Friday morning's London trading, extending losses from the previous day to hit $1592 an ounce by lunchtime, while stocks and commodities also traded lower and US Treasury bonds gained ahead of the release of June nonfarm payrolls data.
Silver bullion fell to $27.42 an ounce – a few cents below where it started the week.
"[Gold] has been in a three month consolidation range of $1528 to $1640," says the latest technical analysis note from bullion bank Scotia Mocatta.
Gold Inches Higher, Loses 1% on Week
MarketWatch
Gold futures edged higher Friday, underpinned by a weaker dollar but for the most part lacking catalysts to make real headway and not enough to erase a weekly loss.
Gold for June delivery advanced $1.40, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,642.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
On the week, gold lost 1%.
Gold broadly missed out on safe-haven flows earlier at the expense of U.S. bonds and the dollar.
A buying trickle came Friday ahead of the weekend and its potential for market-moving headlines around euro-zone troubles and the election in France, but not enough to improve the weekly performance.
“Fundamentally, the news is there, risk is out there,“ said Michael K. Smith, president of T & K Futures in Florida. “It should be (higher)” but it has traded within a $16-dollar range for the better part of two weeks, he added.
On Friday, the dollar pushed lower against major rivals as European stocks moved higher after Germany’s Ifo Institute said its business-confidence gauge edged up to 109.9 in April from 109.8 in March, defying expectations for a pullback.
That boosted the euro and sent the greenback lower. The ICE dollar index stood recently at 79.270, off from the 79.589 seen late Thursday.
A weaker dollar is a generally positive for gold and other commodities as it makes them less expensive to holders of other currencies.
Investors will be eyeing International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington over the weekend, as well as Sunday’s first-round presidential vote in France.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist challenger François Hollande are expected to move to a head-to-head runoff on May 6. Most French opinion polls show Hollande would prevail in that runoff.
The broader metals complex mostly traded higher, with silver bucking the trend.
May silver slipped 13 cents, or 0.4%, to end at $31.65 an ounce.
On the week, however, silver gained 0.8%.
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Gold Ends Modestly Higher After Two-Day Loss
MarketWatch
Gold futures ended higher on Tuesday, capping a choppy trading day and breaking a two-session losing run as U.S. oil and equities traded higher and as concerns about the euro zone faded.
Gold for June delivery advanced $1.40, or 0.1%, to $1,651.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices lost some steam as floor-trading settlement approached.
Other metals ended higher as well, with palladium leading the way, up 1.7%.
Gold had shaken off a weak start of floor trading, but struggled to make some real headway despite the rallies for stocks and gains above 1% for oil futures.
“Gold is kind of piggybacking on the overall market,” albeit much more mutedly, according to Adam Klopfenstein, a market strategist at Archer Financial in Chicago. Traders are particularly keen on watching upcoming earnings and any news about the euro zone, he said.
The yellow metal closed at its lowest level in a week on Monday after investors sought out the U.S. dollar as a haven against euro-zone debt concerns.
Gold searched for direction as investors weighed the news from Europe, but sensed that concerns remained.
A successful bond auction in Spain and data showing German investor confidence rising for the fifth month in a row added to hopes the euro zone is on the mend.
Investors will keep their eyes trained on Europe, however, with “growing fears Spain may take advantage of the bailout fund” and the first round of French presidential elections this weekend, analysts at Commerzbank wrote in a note to clients. “In the medium to long term, gold should be able to assert its status as a store of value and recommence its upswing.”
U.S. stocks traded near session highs, with tech stocks powering gains. The rising tide lifted gold and oil futures, as well as other commodities. The rally centered around the improved demand at the Spanish bond auction.
Also Tuesday, U.S. investors parsed out data on U.S. housing starts, showing the start of home construction at a slower pace in March, but promising numbers of construction permits. Another report showed U.S. industrial production unchanged.
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Stocks Drop as Gold Rises After Disappointing Jobs Report
Bloomberg
U.S. stocks fell, extending losses from the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s worst week of 2012, while yields on 10-year Treasuries slipped and gold rose as job creation in the world’s biggest economy trailed estimates.
The S&P 500 lost 1.1 percent to 1,382.20 at 4 p.m. New York time. Treasury 10-year yields slipped as much as four basis points to a one-month low of 2.02 percent. Gold futures added 0.8 percent to $1,643.90 an ounce. The euro reversed losses, climbing 0.1 percent to $1.3113. Copper futures slumped to the lowest level since Feb. 17.
U.S. employers added 85,000 fewer jobs in March than economists projected, the biggest shortfall since the report released on July 8, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Labor Department’s April 6 statement spurred concern about the pace of American growth after improving economic data helped fuel a 12 percent first-quarter rally in the S&P 500 (SPX), the best annual start since 1998. The index lost 0.7 percent last week.
“The economy does continue to grow, but slowly,” John Carey, who helps oversee about $220 billion at Pioneer Investments in Boston, said in a telephone interview. “That’s been the source of frustration for a lot of investors, that we haven’t had the big forward movement in the economy like we have in the past.”
All western European stock markets were shut for holidays, along with Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Thailand andSouth Africa. U.S. markets were closed on April 6, when the monthly report from the Labor Department was released. TheMSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) of shares in the region fell 0.6 percent today.
Overcoming Jobs
The U.S. jobs report presents a challenge that stocks have overcome nine times during the bull market that drove the S&P 500 up more than 100 percent in three years. While the S&P 500 averaged losses of 0.8 percent in the day after the data missed projections by at least 85,000 since March 2009, the benchmark gauge cut its decline in half a week later and was up 0.9 percent after two weeks, the data show.
Alcoa Inc. (AA) slipped 0.3 percent. The aluminum producer is scheduled to disclose first-quarter results tomorrow, the first Dow Jones Industrial Average company to report. AOL Inc. (AOL) surged 43 percent, the most since it was spun off from Time Warner Inc. in 2009, after agreeing to sell and license patents to Microsoft Corp. in a deal valued at $1.06 billion.
The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) slid 0.9 percent. China’s consumer prices rose 3.6 percent in March from a year earlier, the government said. That compared with the 3.4 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists and a 3.2 percent gain the previous month. The one-year swap rate rose five basis points to 3.195 percent.
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Gold Recovers Smartly on Firm Buying, Silver Also Moves Up
The Economic Times
Gold prices recovered smartly at the bullion market here today on fresh off-take by investors and jewellery buying at lower levels amid higher European cues.
Silver also regained moderately on the back of renewed speculative demand.
Standard gold of 99.5 per cent purity rose by Rs 200 to close at Rs 27,570 per 10 grams from Monday's close of Rs 27,370.
Pure gold of 99.9 per cent purity surged by Rs 205 to end at Rs 27,700 per 10 grams from Rs 27,495 yesterday.
Silver ready (.999 fineness) spurted by Rs 415 to finish at Rs 52,675 per kg as against Rs 52,260 previously.
In Europe, gold prices gained on lower dollar amid Eurozone Ministers' decision to boost IMF resources to tackle debt crisis.
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Gold Rallies Ahead of Fed; Silver Recoups Some Losses
CNBC
Gold rose for a second day on Wednesday, profiting from a weaker dollar, which came under pressure ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate decision, while silver pared some of the previous day's slide.
The Fed is not expected to signal any rush to scale back its multi-billion dollar support mechanisms for the economy, so investors are waiting to hear more on the outlook for monetary policy from chairman Ben Bernanke when he gives the central bank's first post-decision news conference later in the day.
With the dollar under pressure and its inverse link to gold strengthening for the first time in a week, the bullion price was set for a second day of gains, although a string of public holidays in the United Kingdom restricted volumes.
Spot gold [XAU= 1516.15 
14.95 (+1%) 
] was last bid around $1,510 an ounce.
U.S. futures [GCM1 1512.80 9.30 (+0.62%) ] for June delivery were last quoted around $1,510 an ounce.
"It is definitely the main event that the market is looking ahead to," said Credit Suisse analyst Tom Kendall.
"We've seen yet again the dollar under pressure ahead of that statement and precious metals definitely benefitting and base metals soggy," he said, adding he expected to see no change in the Fed's stance on policy, although the key drivers for the gold price remained in place.
"It is the dollar, it is sovereign debt, whether that is the U.S. or the periphery of Europe. It is headline rates of inflation in emerging markets and developed markets and it is a bit of geopolitical uncertainty."
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Dollar Set for Biggest Monthly Loss Since 2008 Versus Euro on U.S. Economy
Bloomberg
Yoshiaki Nohara and Ron Harui
The dollar headed for its biggest monthly loss since 2008 versus the euro as signs the U.S. economy is slowing damped demand for the nation’s assets.
The dollar was set for a quarterly drop versus all of its major counterparts before data forecast to show U.S. business activity and manufacturing slowed. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is scheduled to testify in Washington today amid speculation the central bank is preparing to buy more U.S. debt. The yen approached the strongest since the Bank of Japan intervened amid speculation exporters are bringing home overseas earnings before the end of the fiscal first half.
“America’s economic growth seems to be decelerating,” said Tsutomu Soma, a bond and currency dealer in Tokyo at Okasan Securities Co. “This is a negative factor for the dollar.”
The dollar was at $1.3602 per euro at 1:28 p.m. in Tokyo from $1.3627 in New York yesterday, when it touched $1.3647, the weakest level since April 15. The greenback has fallen 6.7 percent this month versus the euro, the most since December 2008.
The yen traded at 83.51 per dollar from 83.70, after reaching 83.49, the strongest since Sept. 15. Japan’s currency rose to 113.62 per euro from 114.06, after dropping to as low as 114.23, its weakest since July 29.
U.S. Data
The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. will say today its business barometer fell to 55.5 this month from 56.7 in August, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Figures greater than 50 signal expansion. The ISM manufacturing gauge dropped to 54.5 this month from 56.3 in August, according to another survey before the data tomorrow.
The Fed announced following its Sept. 21 meeting that it’s prepared to do more to help the economy, spurring speculation policy makers will add securities to the central bank’s holdings under a policy known as quantitative easing.
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