Congo’s South Kivu governor suspends mining operations in province
The decision will hit artisanal miners of metals such as gold and tin hard, as they are the region's dominant producers.
Gold was punished on Thursday, as interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve were put back on the table following some of the best employment data out of the US in decades.
Traders in gold futures in New York slashed the price of gold for delivery in June, the most active contract, to a low of $1,225.40 an ounce in late trade, down 1.8% or almost $23 from yesterday’s close. Gold hit a 13-month high of $1,274 an ounce March 10 and remains up nearly 15.6% in 2016.
Earlier on Thursday, data showed that weekly US jobless claims fell to 253,000. That compares to more than 600,000 at the height of the global financial crisis and the lowest mark since 1973.
The strong reading strengthens the position of hawks on the Fed’s decision making committee with predictions of a rate hike in December (which would only be the second in a decade) jumping to a 57% chance from less than even earlier this week.
Higher rates boosts the US currency and the dollar index advanced to a two-week high above 95 against a basket of the world’s major currencies after the release of the data.
Commodities priced in US dollar usually have an inverse relationship to the world’s reserve currency, particularly gold. The US dollar index’s record high of 164.72 reached in February 1985 coincided with the bottom in the price of gold of $284.25 an ounce during that same month.
2 Comments
Restless Boomers
What a worthless article. Everyone knows both the employment and unemployment numbers are totally faked.
Following the Great Recession many states had depleted unemployment insurance funds and had to borrow money from the Feds. States instituted ‘reforms’ to make sure this didn’t happen again, making it much more difficult for those who were layed off in the future to qualify for even more meager unemployment benefits. Ad to this the fact that many of today’s jobs are temporary, part time and gig, and you get the true picture.
This whole discussion on what the Federal Reserve is going to do next and the awesome economic surge our nation is enjoying is nothing more than the latest head fake for Sheeple who are getting sheared by QE, ZIRP and NIRP.
Goldfinger
You missed a word in the title. Gold price monkey hammered for no good reason, ie the paper price. Sooner or later there will be a disconnect between the price of physical gold and not paper gold. No article on Deutche banks admission to manipulating the price of precious metals ???