Gold futures surged to the highest value of 2023 taking out the former high of $1976 achieved in February. As of 4:09 PM EST, the most active April contract of gold futures is up $58.10 or 3.02% and fixed at $1981.10. Although dollar weakness contributed to today’s dramatic ascent it was only a small factor in a much larger picture.

On Tuesday of next week, the Federal Reserve will hold its second Open Market Committee meeting of the year. This will be followed by an FOMC statement and press conference by Chairman Jerome Powell on the following day March 22.

Gold prices surged today with gold futures trading to a high of $1942.50. Multiple assets traded sharply higher including gold, the dollar, and U.S. Treasuries. These gains were directly attributed to another crisis in the banking sector. This caused market participants to lighten their riskier assets and move that capital into safe-haven assets.

Today’s CPI report revealed that inflation continues to be troublesome and elevated in some sectors, with a fractional decline overall from 0.5% in January to 0.4% last month. Headline inflation continues to slowly dissipate from 6.4% year-over-year in January to  6% in February. Core inflation also remains elevated coming in at 5.5% year-over-year compared to 5.6% in January.

Gold has gained almost $100 in the last two days of trading. Gold futures basis most active April contract opened at $1835 on Friday and closed at $1867. Today gold opened at $1877 and as of 5:30 PM EST is currently fixed at $1917.30 after factoring in today’s gain of $50.10 or 2.66%.

Today’s jobs report for February came in well over forecasts by economists that were polled by various news services. The polls of economists predicted that there would be a total of between 200,000 to 225,000 new jobs added last month. This would have been a decent number, but extremely tepid when compared to the 517,000 new jobs added to payrolls during January.

Could tomorrow’s jobs report for February contain another huge surprise with the forecast by economists coming in exceedingly higher or lower than their expectations?

Today Chairman Jerome Powell finished his semiannual congressional testimony. The chairman warned that the Fed could be more aggressive because "The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated."

Today Chairman Jerome Powell addressed the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. As anticipated the chairman delivered a strong warning that the Federal Reserve will once again modify its monetary policy to deliver tougher rate hikes at a faster pace.

Market participants are trading cautiously with a wait-and-see attitude as this week contains multiple events that could have a deep impact on the financial markets across the board. Cautiousness is the overall demeanor of market sentiment as traders and investors await Chairman Powell’s appearance before both the Senate and House beginning on Tuesday.