Recent comments by multiple officials of the Federal Reserve have forced overly optimistic analysts and market participants to have a more realistic viewpoint of the timing and depth of interest rate cuts this year.

An Interview with Ivan Bayoukhi of Wall Street Silver and myself, on the WallStreetSilver channel. We delve into the complexities of the silver and gold markets in the context of current economic projections, interest rates, and the Federal Reserve's policies.

The United States and Britain launched airstrikes across Yemen beginning yesterday, attacking 16 locations, and striking 60 military targets in an attempt to stifle more drone attacks on merchant ships. Recently, there have been multiple unsuccessful drone attacks that have targeted merchant ships in the southern Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthis, an Iranian-backed military group.

Today a government report confirmed what consumers, especially those on fixed incomes have felt as they paid for essential goods and services such as food, shelter, and energy, and that is that costs continue to rise.

Market participants are focusing on tomorrow’s latest data on inflation, which will be followed by the PPI (Producer Price Index) report on Friday. Economists are forecasting that headline inflation has increased and projected a rise of 0.2% in December, which would take inflation year-over-year from 3% to 3.2%.

As of 4:43 PM ET gold futures basis the most active February contract is trading higher by $2.50 or 0.12% and fixed at $2036. Concurrently the dollar is also up fractionally, yielding gains today of 0.21% taking the dollar index to 102.521.

This morning the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the nonfarm payroll employment report for December at 8:30 AM ET. There was an immediate and strong knee-jerk reaction to this report’s release. 

Editor’s note: In tomorrow’s video report we will detail the thought process behind the trade alert we sent out earlier. This will include our expectations and upside target if we are correct. It will also include the logic of our stop placement. 

Today gold prices fell significantly down just over $30, the largest percentage decline in over three weeks. As of 5:30 PM EST gold futures basis the most active February contract is fixed at $2042.80 after factoring in today’s decline of -1.48%, or $30.60.

An interesting start for the first trading day of 2024. In overseas trading, gold rallied trading to a high of $2088. These gains were short-lived once trading moved to the United States as dollar strength reversed the strong gains witnessed earlier. Gold futures traded to a low of $2064, before recovering.