Gold nudges higher as traders wait on Bernanke

[harreymartin]

Gold futures traded modestly higher in the early part of Wednesday’s Asian session as traders await congressional testimony later Wednesday from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, gold futures for August delivery rose 0.17% to USD1,292.55 per troy ounce in Asian trading Wednesday after settling up 0.48% at USD1289.65 a troy ounce during Tuesday’s U.S. session.

Gold futures were likely to find support at USD1,237.05 a troy ounce, the low from July 8 and near-term resistance at USD1,301.75, the high from June 21.

Gold got a lift thanks to a pair of U.S. data points. In U.S. economic news out Tuesday, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing-market index rose to 57 in July from 51 in June. The July reading is the highest since January 2006.

The Labor Department said U.S. consumer price inflation rose 0.5% in June following a 0.1% rise in May. Economists expected a 0.3% June increase. Core CPI increased at annualized rate of 1.6% last month, in line with forecasts and slowing from 1.7% in May.

Core prices are viewed by the Federal Reserve as a better gauge of longer-term inflationary pressure because they exclude the volatile food and energy categories. The Fed is aiming to keep inflation around 2% or less. Industrial production rose 0.3% in June, the biggest increase in four months.

Traders will now turn their attention to Wednesday’s testimony from Bernanke after the Fed chief ignited a rally in gold last week when he said tapering of the central bank’s USD85 billion a month quantitative easing program is not as imminent as some investors previously expected.
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http://www.investing.com/news/commodities-news/gold-nudges-higher-as-traders-wait-on-bernanke-250335

 

[benjamen]

Metals go back down as Bernanke promises to slow down QE:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/berna...Rwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3BtaA--;_ylv=3

"He also reiterated previous remarks that the central bank could continue to reduce the pace of asset purchases through the first half of next year, ending them around midyear so long as the economy continues to improve and inflation normalizes."

"We have not seen that our purchases are disrupting the Treasury market in any way. And we believe they have been effective in keeping interest rates low,"

 

[DSAbug]

They sold it off while he was reading his prepared remarks that were out 1 hour before the open. It was a bunch of algos attacking, not a real reaction to some "news".

meanwhile during the Q&A...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-17/q-are-you-printing-money-not-literally

Yes... The chairman of the Federal reserve just testified before congress that,if the Fed were to tighten policy, the economy "would tank"...

 

[CharlesMcLain]

At this writing gold is well above the $1,300 threshold at $1,335 an-ounce. Guess the bad times for physical gold are over and I can now see some appreciation in my gold investment

 

[Aubuy]

Seems like gold really doesn't want to go below $1200, at least not for very long, because at that price the physical buyers really step up. So maybe we've seen the bottom.