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.

On fears regarding a Fed rate increase gold tumbled in regular trading, a move down that was moderated by a substantially weaker U.S. dollar today.

The dollar was off about 1.00% against the euro. Equities were up but mixed, spotty first earnings reports pushing some stocks up and some down. Crude was up on continued worries about U.S. supplies and stockpiles.

A stronger dollar – what else is new? – helped push gold lower today. But it was regular trading that pressed down on prices driven by the fear that the Fed is about to boost interest rates.

Every once in a while it seems as though the stars align and the outcome is an unusual occurrence. After witnessing today’s trading activity a case could be made for today’s “rare occurrence”. Typically one sees a negative correlation between certain markets. Rarely do you see them all move in tandem.

That is certainly not the case today.

Hard as it is to believe, today’s U.S. dollar strength is being driven by the sketching out of scenarios by some Federal Reserve members who discussed how rates could rise earlier than is now assumed. That rocketed the dollar up.