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Gold rises on softer dollar, but set for worst quarter in over 4 years

 

·         Gold gained over 1% on Wednesday, helped by the dollar’s pullback, but elevated U.S. bond yields still put the metal on course for its biggest quarterly decline in more than four years.

 

·         Spot gold rose 1.6% to $1,711.27 per ounce by 1:57 p.m. ET after touching its lowest since March 8 at $1,677.61. U.S. gold futures settled up 1.8% at $1,715.60.

 

·         Gold is down over 9% for the quarter and is on track for its worst quarterly performance since end-December 2016.

 

·         “As we’ve seen bond yields stabilize and the dollar pull back off its recent highs, we have seen a little move off the lows in the gold market,” said David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.

 

The dollar edged off a near five-month peak.

 

U.S. President Joe Biden’s “very large structural stimulus plan” has contributed to concerns over inflation and should support gold markets, Meger said.

 

·         “The market is watching to see whether or not the $1,680 support level is going to hold,” said Daniel Ghali, TD Securities commodity strategist.

 

·         Bullion is seen as a hedge against inflation, but rising Treasury yields have challenged that status as they translate into a higher opportunity cost to hold bullion.

 

·         Among other precious metals, platinum gained 2.8% to $1,186.49 an ounce and palladium climbed 1.3% to $2,622.49, en route to its best month since February 2020.

 

·         Russia’s Nornickel, a major platinum and palladium producer, said on Monday it had stopped water flowing into its two major mines in the Siberian Arctic.

 

·         The Arctic mine closures have drastically reduced platinum and palladium group metal production and could lead to an even tighter market than previously anticipated, Ghali said.

 

·         Silver rose 1.5% to $24.38 per ounce, but was down over 8% for the month.

  

·         President Biden unveils his $2 trillion infrastructure plan – here are the details

President Joe Biden unveiled a more than $2 trillion infrastructure package on Wednesday as his administration shifts its focus to bolstering the post-pandemic economy.

The plan Biden outlined Wednesday includes roughly $2 trillion in spending over eight years and would raise the corporate tax rate to 28% to fund it. Speaking at a union hall in Pittsburgh, the president called it a vision to create “the strongest, most resilient, innovative economy in the world” — and millions of “good-paying jobs” along the way.

 

·         Biden calls for $100 billion to expand U.S. broadband access

 

·         Biden wants to build a national EV charging system under $2 trillion infrastructure plan, but it won’t be easy

President Joe Biden is prioritizing a national EV charging network under his $2 trillion infrastructure bill, promising to have at least 500,000 of the devices installed across the U.S. by 2030.

“As electric vehicles become more primary vehicles for people, certainly it’s not like we’re going to replace the gas station with the charging station and that’s it,” said Mark Wakefield, a managing director and global co-leader of the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners.

 

·         Private payrolls in March expanded at the fastest pace since September 2020 with companies adding 517,000 workers for the month, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP. It was a healthy spike from the 176,000 in February though just below the 525,000 Dow Jones estimate.

Investors await the key March jobs report on Friday to assess the state of the labor-market recovery. Economists expect 630,000 jobs were added in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 6% from 6.2%, according to Dow Jones.

·         CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:

COVID-19 infections are still rising in 72 countries.

 

Global Cases: 129.45 (+638,249)

Global Deaths: 2.82M (+12,234)

 

No. 1

U.S. Cases: 31.16M (+68,756)

U.S. Deaths: 565,254 (+1,113)

 

No.2 - 7

Brazil Cases: 12.75M (+89,200)

India Cases: 12.22M (+72,182)

France Cases: 4.64 (+41,907)

Russia Cases: 4.54M (+8,275)

UK Cases: 4.34M (+4,052)

Italy Cases : 3.58 (+23,904)

 

No.116

Thailand Cases: 28,863 (+42)

Thailand Deaths: 94

 

·         Global Vaccination

So far, at least 149 countries have begun vaccinating people for the coronavirus and have administered at least 577,812,000 doses of the vaccine.

 

·         Coronavirus surge could be worse than the last for the Americas: PAHO

 

·         Macron orders Covid lockdown across all of France, closes schools

 

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of COVID-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Reference: CNBC, Reuters, Worldometers