After a mostly quiet week, gold has continued the trend in the Monday session. In North American trade, the spot price for an ounce of gold is $1319.86, up 0.10% on the day. It’s a very quiet day on the fundamentals front, with no economic indicators on the schedule. On Tuesday, the focus will be on consumers spending, with the release of retail sales and core retail sales.
With the U.S economy continuing to perform well in 2018, it comes as no surprise that the U.S consumer is feeling very optimistic. On Friday, the UoM Consumer Sentiment improved to 98.8 in April, beating the estimate of 98.4 points. The U.S labor market is at near or full employment, which has resulted in a slowdown in job growth due to a shortage of skilled workers. This was underscored last week, as JOLTS Job Openings climbed to a record 6.6 million. At the same time, inflation levels remain low, as the Federal Reserve target of 2 percent remains elusive. CPI rebounded with a gain of 0.2%, but this fell short of the estimate of 0.3%. Core CPI edged lower to 0.1%, shy of the forecast of 0.2%. Inflation levels will be an important factor for the Fed in its monetary policy projection, which remains at two more hikes in 2018. The odds of a rate hike at the June hike stands close to 100%.
