Stocks were looking for an excuse to fall back and they found one in weaker crude prices, which weighed on U.S. markets.

Gold took advantage, rising over $16 with $13.50 accounted for by regular trading. The rest was due to dollar weakness. Silver picked up 2.00% or 41 cents on the day and both platinum and palladium were strong. Palladium bumped up about 2.00%.

As the saying goes, “There’s no fighting city hall.” For gold, we can extrapolate by saying, “There is no fighting economic strength in the U.S. economy.”

Gold fell by $16.40 an ounce, the preponderance of which came via regular trading, although a stronger dollar slightly helped push down the yellow metal. The loss was around 1.25%.

After an astronomically higher count of new housing starts, the U.S. dollar rocketed upward, wreaking havoc on gold, which, nevertheless managed to eke out some gains and rise above technical pricing. 

Regular trading countered the strong greenback and so gold bumped up by almost $4.00. Silver did not see the regular-trading cavalry ride to its rescue and fell by 14 cents.

Gold is off $8.40 in late afternoon trading while silver is down 18¢ or 0.90% per ounce. This is in spite of assistance from a weaker U.S. dollar, which drives prices up.

A 0.6% rise in U.S. retail sales for June, blew the 0.1% rise predicted by economists out of the water. It’s yet another reminder why economics is called “the dismal science.” The rise was the third straight monthly increase. Sales are up 2.7% from a year earlier.

Gold is off around $8.00 today, but the heart of the story is that the price point reflects a nearly $3.50 positive assist from a weaker U.S. dollar. Otherwise gold would have been off $11.00 in total. Silver was also off today as it too felt the sting of hungry stock investors.

Gold found help in a mildly weaker dollar and semi-enthusiastic regular trading. It added up to a modest 0.80% gain on the day. Silver was up around 1.15% and ever-eccentric palladium rose 2.80% on the day.

Asia opened the celebrations with the Nikkei jumping 2.45%, Shanghai up 1.80% and Hong Kong rising 1.60%. Good way to start the proceedings for equities bulls.

The French CAC rose 1.60% and the DAX was higher by 1.30%. The FTSE was marginally off, but, given great Britain’s precarious economic perch, it was really a win.

There is a handful of relatively simple reasons why it took till today for the stock markets to churn and burn higher.

The big news today in trading, of course, is the jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor.

June's huge jobs number beat predictions with a stick. It was surprising, given May's disappointing data. The U.S. economy added 287,000 non-farm payrolls last month, 112K more than estimates.