GOLD PRICES touched their lowest level since November's 10% crash in London trade Tuesday, dropping as European stockmarkets lost 1.5% amid fresh rebukes to Athens from Germany and Brussels over Greece's attempt to renegotiate its bail-out loans.
Dollar gold prices then rallied 1.0% to trade back at $1167 per ounce – unchanged for the week so far – as US Treasury yields sank and US stockmarkets opened lower following weaker-than-expected data on US wholesale trade and new job openings.
"Inflation is contained, unemployment is declining...and the
overall economy is steaming along," said outgoing Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher in a speech in Houston, Texas overnight.
"I would rather the FOMC raise interest rates early and gradually, than late and steeply."
"The headwind from government spending is abating," said Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester in a separate speech Monday, noting that Washington's spending "began to rise again last year [while] the banking sector is regaining its health [and] we now also have a tailwind in the form of lower oil prices.
Today's new US figures showed job openings reaching a 14-year high in January, but the JOLTS release missed analyst forecasts after last week's much stronger than expected non-farm payrolls data.
Wholesale trade across the US meantime fell more than 3% by value from December, the third monthly drop in succession.
US Treasury bond prices rose, pushing 10-year yields down to 2.13% from yesterday's new 2015 high of 2.24% per year.
"Our outlook for gold is fairly bearish at the moment," the Sydney Morning Herald quotes ANZ Bank analyst Daniel Hynes, forecasting a drop to new 5-year lows of US$1100 per ounce as the Dollar rises again.
Friday's monthly non-farm payroll data, which saw gold prices plunge last week, "[were] never a big driver of gold," reckons Swiss bank UBS analyst Jo Battershill, "but have become a strong driver of the gold price over the last 18 months."
Eurogroup finance chief Dijsselbloem meantime warned Athens that Greece "won't receive" further bail-out loans if it doesn't press ahead with privatizations and deregulation.
"Markets will also lose confidence," he said, according to the Reuters news-wire.
Euro gold prices rose to €1089 today – a new 20-month high when reached this January – as the single currency slid to fresh multi-year lows on the FX market.
Britain's Pound Sterling today broke above 7-year highs at €1.40, while the Dollar reached its highest value in 12 years at better than $1.08 per Euro.
Emerging-market currencies sank alongside the Euro, with Mexican Pesos extending Friday's drop – when stronger-than-expected US jobs data saw the Banco de Mexico spend $200m of its FX reserves to try and defend the currency – to hit the lowest Dollar level since the 1993 launch of the 'nuevo peso'.
Brazil's Real touched new 11-year lows amid analyst concerns that Rouseff's government will fail to implement 'austerity' to cut the public deficit.
Broad commodities index the Bloomberg CMCI lost 1.1% for the day.
Silver tracked gold prices, rallying from $15.63 per ounce to trade flat for 2015 to date.
