Commodity Blog

Gold futures are posting modest losses to start the trading week. With President Donald Trump’s tax reform plan passing the US Senate, positive economic data, and ABC News issuing a correction to its bombshell report on Friday, the yellow metal is retreating from its mid-Friday’s surge.

February gold futures slipped $5.80, or 0.45%, to $1,276.50 per ounce at 16:25 GMT on Monday. Gold prices climbed above $1,290 on Friday afternoon before ending the trading session flat. The yellow metal did post a weekly gain of 0.40%, and logged a tepid 0.50% increase in November.

Silver, the sister commodity to gold, is also trading in the red to kick off the trading week. March silver futures dipped $0.06, or 0.38%, to $16.32 an ounce. The white metal suffered a 1.4% monthly loss as well as 0.20% weekly decline.

On Friday, the US Senate voted in favor of the $1.5 trillion, 400-page-plus Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a key campaign pledge for President Trump. The stock market was able to pare much of Friday’s losses after the piece of legislation received a 51–49 vote. This caused gold to shed some of its gains.

The yellow metal topped $1,290 after ABC News’s seasoned journalist Brian Ross reported on Friday morning that sources said Candidate Trump “directed” then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn “to make contact with the Russians.” The television network issued a correction hours later, confirming that it was President-Elect Trump who made the order following the election. The initial story caused the Dow Jones to plunge nearly 400 points, but after it was discovered that it was a false report, the Dow finished down only 42 points.

Gold is further being affected by a stronger US dollar as the greenback rose 0.16%. A stronger US dollar is bad for commodities like gold because it makes it more expensive for foreign investors to purchase.

Gold futures have hardly reacted to new economic data that found US factory orders dropped 0.1% in October. This comes as the ISM manufacturing index hit 58.2 last month, and October construction spending was up 1.4%. Investors will now pay attention to the non-farm-payroll report scheduled to be released on Friday.

Analysts aver that the November labor numbers may give some hints as to how the Federal Reserve will push ahead with increases to interest rates next year. Gold is generally sensitive to a rising-rate environment because it lifts the opportunity cost and sends investors into yield-bearing assets.

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