A modest bounce after yesterday’s bloodbath has once again thrust the yellow precious metal into the “range game.”

Some might have expected a bigger up-move after the minutes of the FOMC’s April meeting were released. Those minutes clearly express the feeling among committee members that yes, the economy is improving, but no, not enough to trigger a rate hike. For instance:

If there was a doubt that the U.S. dollar had pulled out of its correction recently, today’s booming buck erased all concerns.

U.S. dollar strength pinned down any gains gold made today in so-called regular trading. The recently docile dollar really roared against major currencies, up over 1% against the euro.

But: whither the dollar in the near term? We need answers to the question as gold traders.

Factory production stalled significantly in April, as American manufacturers deal with blows that range from a strong dollar to cheap oil.

The U.S. economy has given us some weak data points in the last two weeks as we discussed over that course of time in our fundamentals section. Employment remained soft into April; retail sales are very soft; manufacturing has been spotty.

Flat retail sales in April ignited a sell off of the U.S. dollar today, boosting gold all by itself by not quite 1.00%. Investors and traders joined in the love fest and kicked the yellow precious metal even higher.

A decline in the U.S. dollar today gave gold the boost it was looking for, accounting for more than half of the session’s rise of over $9.00.

Equities are struggling for a variety of reasons. A sell off in German bonds helped trigger one in the U.S. bond market, although both paper issues have since recovered significantly.

Today, everyone from Wall Street to the City of London to Hong Kong was weighing reaction to the good but mixed U.S. data released last Friday.

After a rocky first quarter, the American economy rebounded with stronger job growth in April and prospects look good for May. However, is it enough, ask investors, to warrant an interest-rate hike by the Fed in June.

The long, cold lonely winter in jobs growth ended with the April thaw. The U.S. Department of Labor released data today that was pretty much spot on predictions at an addition of 223,000 new jobs created.

After yesterday’s negative reaction in dollar trading due to the weak – nearly anemic – ADP private labor report, the U.S. dollar turned around almost 180 degrees today. The rise pushed gold lower.