Gold is currently $1,808 per ounce after shooting up last Friday following comments by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell at the Fed's annual Jackson Hole conference on Friday.
Gold jumped from $1,789 per ounce to a peak of $1,818 before the markets closed for the weekend, and has stayed trading in a tight bandwidth between $1,808 to $1,823 per ounce since markets reopened on Monday.
With the US economy heating up, many experts expected Powell and the Fed to finally concede that stimulus should be tapered off in preparation for interest rates rises, but Powell cooled talk of both tapering and rate rises.
Speaking to the conference remotely, Powell said: “We have said that we would continue our asset purchases at the current pace until we see substantial further progress toward our maximum employment and price stability goals.”
The Fed's caution relates to growing numbers of Delta variant cases, as well as concerns that inflation is transitory only due to the ongoing supply chain issues. As a result of Powell's speech and the Fed's immediate direction, the dollar dropped 0.39% in value against a basket of major currencies including the pound and the euro.
Speaking to the BBC, Neil Wilson of Markets.com said: “Powell is a dove and wants more time to assess the data on employment [before he begins tapering asset purchases].
“In a speech that mentioned inflation 82 times, Powell sought to explain over and over why inflation remains transitory. Methinks he doth protest too much.”
With the tech bubble growing whilst more cash is still being pumped in the economy, the current gold demand shows that investor confidence isn't high. So much demand for a safe haven asset like gold shows that economic recovery is far from a certainty.
