After a mad dash to the upside for gold and a similar dash to the downside for the U.S. dollar, investors are getting their bearings once again. April's disappointing jobs report refocused everyone on the potential economic slowdown and a still-dovish Fed. Brien Lundin of Gold Newsletter paints the big picture of how speculation over the Fed's actions to raise interest rates is affecting gold and gold equities, and he discusses two companies that have not appreciated as much as their peers but are likely to soon catch up.
Gold and gold stocks have maintained their gains since early May. And it's largely due to a significant downside miss in the nonfarm payrolls report for April: Against consensus expectations of 205,000 jobs created in the month, April's number came in at just 160,000 jobs. It wasn't quite as bad as the headline number may indicate: Average hourly earnings rose by 8 cents (0.3%), while the average work week added 0.1 hour.
"Gold and gold stocks have maintained their gains since early May."
Still, in an interview recently on CNBC, Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart volunteered a 200,000-job benchmark as a level that would be conducive to further Fed rate hikes. The miss on jobs, combined with dismal, 0.5% GDP growth for the first quarter, should put a stake in the heart of hopes for a rate hike at the Fed's mid-June meeting. Continue reading "Two Companies Poised To Catch Up To Gold Peer Group"
