Gold has had respectable gains since January 31 in light of strong headwinds from rising yields in U.S. Treasuries and the Federal Reserve’s anticipated tightening of their monetary policy. As of 4:40 PM EST gold futures basis the most active April contract is up $5.10, or 0.28%, and fixed at $1826.90.

Gold futures had respectable gains in New York trading today. The most active April 2022 contract gained $14.20 and as of 4:47 PM, EST is currently fixed at $1822.

Volatility continues to be a prominent factor in gold pricing today. The volatility revolved around the release of the Labor Department’s jobs report for January. Earlier this week ADP released its private-sector jobs report. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal  were expecting an additional 200,000 jobs to be added in January.

Dollar weakness provided strong tailwinds today, but bearish market sentiment neutralized any price gain. The net result was a mild downtick in gold futures and only a fractional decline in Spot or Forex gold. Spot gold is currently fixed at $1806.20, a decline of only $0.20.

Over the last three trading days, the vast majority of price advances in gold can be directly attributable to dollar weakness with only fractional gains due to market participants bidding the precious yellow metal higher. The KGX (Kitco gold index) clearly illustrates this point. Today for example spot gold gained $5.60, with only $0.40 added from trading activity.

Gold futures basis the most active April 2022 Comex contract had modest gains today. After factoring in a net gain of $4.80 (+ 0.27%) April gold is currently fixed at $1801.20. Multiple factors were responsible for today’s reasonable gains. The dollar continued to drop from recent highs and is currently fixed at 96.26.

On Friday my article spoke about the fact that it seems as though a pattern called a “Death Cross” was imminent. I said this because the difference between the 50- and 200-day moving averages was only $0.20. The short-term 50-day moving average was fixed at $1805.70, and the 200-day moving average was fixed at $1805.50.

Gold has declined dramatically this week opening at approximately $1841 on Monday, with the February 2022 Comex contract currently fixed at $1790.10. Gold declined by three dollars today taking the weekly price decline two $50.90.

A report released today by the government indicated tremendous growth in GDP Q4, coupled with the change of market sentiment for gold from yesterday’s release of the Fed's updated monetary policy resulted in gold trading sharply lower.

The FOMC meeting concluded today and as many expected, extreme volatility came into both the U.S. equities markets as well as gold. What was unexpected was the statement released by the Federal Reserve and how gold reacted to their updated monetary policy. Clearly, market participants had not factored in analysts’ and economists’ consensus of the outcome.