[Heavy Duty Market]
Spot gold broke away from the declining trend this week and began to rebound after hitting a five-month low on Monday, climbing all the way up from $1,764.57 per ounce to break the 1,840 barrier, up nearly $80, but the last two trading days rally a bit of a break, as of 23:50, spot gold fell back to near the 1,830 barrier.
Spot silver once fell below the $22 mark on Monday, but on Tuesday opened a surge mode, up more than 6% on the day, then reached a high of $24.3 on Wednesday, after which silver entered a horizontal finishing state, as of writing, silver running at $24 near.
In the oil market, WTI crude oil was in a sideways consolidation phase at the beginning of the week, and was down to $43.91 on Wednesday, but then turned up from down, and continued its rally on Thursday, running above the $46 mark on Friday.
In the currency markets, the dollar index suffered a major blow this week, by the U.S. fiscal stimulus hopes rekindled, the U.S. index since Tuesday all the way down from 92 near the 91 level below, and even once fell to 90.52 on Thursday.
Affected by the U.S. dollar, non-U.S. currencies rose, the euro rose more than 180 points against the dollar during the week, the highest reached 1.2174, refreshing the two-and-a-half-year high; the pound against the dollar on Thursday stood at 1.35 mark, a new high since December 2019.
Bitcoin had a tumultuous week, rallying at the beginning of the week, but took a dive on Tuesday, once soaring to $19,914.3, then diving over $1,000 in the short term to as low as $18,112.
On Thursday, Dow Jones Indices, a division of Standard & Poor’s Global, announced the launch of a digital cryptocurrency index next year, the first major financial company to enter this emerging asset class, a move that will help digital cryptocurrencies become a more mainstream investment.
On the stock market front, U.S. stocks performed well on Tuesday, with the Dow rising through 30,000 points and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting new all-time highs. On Friday, the Nasdaq hit a new all-time high of 12,377.18 points, and the S&P 500 hit a new all-time high during the session, but was affected by the unfavorable news on vaccines and fell in the end, giving back most of the day’s gains.
[Weekly Events]
Non-farm payrolls are colder than expected, but gold prices are puzzling
This week, the U.S. released four important data, employment, including November ADP and non-farm payrolls data, ADP was not as good as expected, non-farm payrolls data cold increase of only 245,000 people, far less than expected 469,000 people, after the release of the data, the spot gold trend is bizarre, short-term pull up $ 7 but quickly fell back, volatility of more than $ 14. This week’s poor employment data reflected a job market still plagued by the epidemic.
On the unemployment front, the situation seems to have improved slightly. The U.S. unemployment rate for November was 6.7%, which was lower than expected, and initial jobless claims fell more than expected last week, but overall, more than 20 million Americans are still filing for unemployment benefits each week.
In addition to economic data, the Federal Reserve released its latest brown paper on economic conditions this week, which showed little growth in the current one-third of the U.S. economy, suggesting that the economy is still taking a hit from the epidemic.
Oil Prices Continue to Climb as OPEC+ Reaches Agreement
The OPEC+ meeting scheduled for Tuesday was postponed to December 3, a move that was seen as a sign of a rift within OPEC+, after heated discussions this week around a postponement of the agreement and a gradual increase in production, with internal disagreements over whether to continue cutting production.
On Thursday, OPEC+ finally reached an agreement to gradually ease production cuts over the next year, at a slower pace than originally planned, to give the fragile market more time to digest the additional supply.
On this news, U.S. oil continued to move higher on Friday, ignoring the overnight vaccine headwinds. Late Thursday night, Pfizer abruptly announced that its 2020 vaccine delivery target had been cut in half due to supply chain obstacles.
For the first time since the November election – U.S. bipartisan stimulus talks resume
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of senators had proposed a $908 billion economic stimulus package that reignited market hopes for a stimulus package, although the $908 billion package was met with a closed-door response from Republican leaders.
It is hoped that the thorny issues of comprehensive spending and epidemic relief measures will be resolved before the December 11 deadline for the government to run out of money.
In addition, at this week’s House of Representatives hearing, both Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary John Nuchin renewed their calls for additional fiscal stimulus from Congress.
Since Tuesday, the market has been optimistic about the progress of the stimulus bill, overlaid with the news that Wednesday’s small non-farm payrolls data fell short of expectations, and Pfizer shipments were to be cut back, gold has been moving higher this week.
The British-European negotiations have gone through a series of twists and turns, and the pound has risen sharply.
Brexit seems to have gone from “tunnel” to “tunnel” this week, as uncertainty continues to haunt the final outcome of the UK-EU negotiations. News about the negotiations between the two sides has been coming in this week, ranging from “quite difficult”, to “a post-Brexit deal may not happen”, to “close to a deal unless negotiations break down at the last minute” on Friday. “, it is a lot of twists and turns.
While the complexity of the situation makes the final outcome of the agreement unpredictable, the market seems to be betting on a further move higher for the pound. On Thursday, GBP/USD also touched 1.35, a nearly one-year high.
[Risk Alert]
On the oil market, next Monday, there will be a meeting of the OPEC+ Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) at a time to be determined.
Next Wednesday, at 01:00 AM, the EIA’s monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook will be released. At 05:30 AM, the US API crude oil inventories for the week ending December 4 will be released, and at 23:30 PM, the US EIA crude oil inventories for the week ending December 4 will be released.
Next Saturday, at 2:00 a.m., the total number of oil wells drilled in the U.S. for the week ending Dec. 11 will be released.
In the US, the economic data will be released at 21:30 on Thursday, with the release of the November quarterly CPI rate, as well as the initial jobless claims for the week ending Dec. 5.
In terms of central bank dynamics, next Wednesday at 23:00, the Bank of Canada announced its interest rate decision; next Thursday at 20:45, the European Central Bank announced its interest rate decision, followed by the ECB President Lagarde held a press conference.
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