Stocks were looking for an excuse to fall back and they found one in weaker crude prices, which weighed on U.S. markets.

As the saying goes, “There’s no fighting city hall.” For gold, we can extrapolate by saying, “There is no fighting economic strength in the U.S. economy.”

After an astronomically higher count of new housing starts, the U.S. dollar rocketed upward, wreaking havoc on gold, which, nevertheless managed to eke out some gains and rise above technical pricing.