Gold

The dollar turned lower after the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence slumped to 95.2 in April, well below a forecast of 102.5 and down significantly from 101.4 in March.

Additionally, inflation-rate expectations were the lowest since February 2007.

Last Friday gold sank to five-week lows of $1175. Smelling a bargain, investors and traders stepped in today and began snapping up the yellow precious metal. They sent it up almost 2%.

The brightest side of today’s action for bulls is that the great, great majority of the rise came through regular trading although a weaker dollar lent a small bit of assistance.

The regular trading sell off in gold continued today, knocking it down more than $15 an ounce in late afternoon action. Gold was off its lows for the day, however.

A weakening dollar helped to take some of the sting of loss out of declines throughout the precious metals complex.

The U.S. dollar fell against a basket of world currencies as news from Europe prompted some analysts to guess that the Greek debt crisis will be resolved within the framework of the union.

As George Harrison sang, “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.” And now, if the huge jump in both sales and prices of existing homes are any indication, the American economy is in for the spring ride of its life.

Existing home sales rose 6.3%. Prices rose for existing homes by 7.8%.

The National Association of Realtors was happy for the rises, needless to say.

We are happy to say we will not be talking about the Fed today. Soon enough, however.

Gold rose modestly on short covering and bargain hunting. Many traders felt they could buy and bid it up, which they did, although the bump has little steam in it.

The U.S. dollar courteously did not significantly interfere with the small rise, wobbling around as it did on the day.

China lowered the reserve requirements for its banks last week, a move tailored to boost risk taking via lending. The move has had the rather perverse effect of sending U.S. and European exchanges higher while Asian equities markets slid lower.

China is admonishing its high-flying investors, big and small, to lay off extreme borrowing or selling property to buy stocks. Essentially, the centrally planned economy is talking down speculation (especially on OTC stocks) and is going to restrict margin buying. As an indication of how crazy trading in China has gotten, in March alone 4 million small-investor retail accounts were opened.

U.S. equities probably executed the best strategy Thursday after a raft of U.S. data appeared yesterday and today. Do little or nothing stock traders seemed to say.

Let’s start with the U.S. dollar today. It fell against major currencies and helped put a tiger in the tank of precious metals trading. It pushed the entire complex up by a third of a percentage point all on its own.