Gold began this week in positive territory, recouping the losses it had sustained at the end of last week.
Early on Monday, the precious metal gained 1% and rose to $1,890 per ounce, with the key level of $1,900 now in sight.
Gold futures for April delivery rose 0.74%, or $13.8 this morning on the Comex in New York, advancing to $1,890.4 per ounce. Silver futures for March delivery gained 0.48% and hit $22.512 per ounce.
The current upswing overturned the losses which occurred during the last trading session of the previous week. On Friday, precious metals performed a significant downward correction. Gold dropped by 2.8% amid the release of another batch of statistic data in the United States. The precious metal was sent downwards largely by US unemployment data. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4% from 3.5% in December. At the same time, non-farm payrolls rose by 517,000, well exceeding the forecasted increase of 185,000. It is noteworthy that such a significant growth was a surprise to most experts, who had never expected a jump of more than 185 thousand.
The US dollar advanced thanks to positive macroeconomic data, with USDX immediately gaining 1.14% against the basket of the six major currencies of the world and reaching 102.92. Usually, a stronger dollar would likely weigh down on the precious metals market. However, in the current situation not even this negative factor can keep gold away from breaking above the key level of $1,900 per ounce.
The overall trend in the precious metals market has been quite positive over the past few months. In November, gold began to swing strongly. The rally was so significant that few experts made long-term outlooks for gold. The precious metal fluctuated between $1,640 and $1,945 per ounce, moving by more than 18%. Now, the situation has stabilized to such an extent that gold might begin the biggest rally in three years. At the end of summer of 2020, the precious metal hit its all-time high. Then cost reached $2,075.14 dollars per ounce. The current situation makes even a breakthrough above this level possible.
There are two reasons for the unprecedented optimism in the precious metals market.
- Firstly, demand for gold by central banks around the world has increased. Especially strong this demand was expressed by the People's Bank of China. The quite low price of gold at that moment contributed to it.
- Secondly, gold and foreign currency reserves of the United States continued to decrease due to the debt liabilities of the US Treasury Department.
The world's central banks expanded their gold reserves quite substantially last year. Gold reserves have increased by 1136 tons, equivalent in value to about $70 billion. It has been the biggest purchase of the precious metal since 1967.
In addition, the demand for the precious metal in 2022 went up by 18% compared to the previous year. In 2022, gold sales reached 4,741 tons, hitting the highest level in 11 years.
All of this combined has bolstered the precious metals market, giving hope to market participants. However, it should be noted that a massive upsurge is always followed by either stagnation or a pullback. As long as there are no significant reasons for gold to decline, it may very well hit a high of $2,000 per ounce.
