Gold prices are advancing amid a slump in global equities and on the back of expectations that the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) will cut interest rates at least twice this year, beginning in July. The price of the precious metal rose to a more than 13-month high on Friday, June 7, after unexpectedly weak US jobs data raised hopes that it would provide the necessary trigger for the Fed to ease rates.
The manufacturing sector in the United States slowed for the second straight month, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM’s) PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) survey in October.
The University of Michigan Preliminary Consumer Sentiment Index slipped to 95.3 in August from July’s final reading of 97.9. The preliminary survey numbers were the lowest since September 2017 and sharply below market consensus of 98.0
The seasonally adjusted US Producer Price Index (PPI) advanced 0.3 percent in June after registering a 0.5-percent rise the previous month, according to information published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) voted unanimously to leave its benchmark interest rate, or the federal funds rate, on hold at 1.5-1.75 percent, following its monetary-policy meeting on May 2, 2018.
Volatility has made its return to the United States’ stock market, albeit not the way bullish investors would like. A recent decline in the US equities market erased the gains of many weeks in a matter of days in both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 indices.
The US economy continued to expand in September of this year, with some of the key economic data in October pointing to robust economic activity that could well extend into the last three months of 2017.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the Federal Reserve System’s Board of Governors Chair Janet Yellen threw some for a loop.