COVID-19 Continues to Impact Market Sentiment

The coronavirus now labeled as COVID-19 by the World Health Organization continues to profoundly influence market sentiment. Over the last couple of weeks, it has pressured the equities markets globally. More importantly the ramifications of this outbreak and the real potential of this virus spreading to countries outside China are still unknown.

While the death toll, and reported cases of the virus continues to swell, up until this point the vast majority of cases have been contained to China.

However currently there are 443 people residing in the United States that are currently being tested to verify whether or not they have contracted the disease. Of these individuals 15 have tested positive, 81 people are still pending results, with the remaining 347 people testing negative.

What is known is that the virus continues to spread unchecked, with no known vaccine or treatment available currently. According to CNN China has recorded an additional 5090 cases today, bringing the global total to 64,435. The death toll is believed to be at least 1,383, which includes three individuals who have died outside of mainland China. Most alarming is a report from China that 1700 medical workers have been infected by the virus resulting in six additional deaths.

According to the CDC coronavirus test kits are still not ready to ship after some testing kits were found to be unreliable.

Gold Had Modest Gains This Week

Gold futures have seen modest gains this week, opening at $1575 on Monday, and closing at $1587.80 today. That is a net gain of approximately $12 on the week. Noteworthy is the fact that nine dollars of this week’s gain occurred today.

Our technical studies indicate that there is resistance at $1595 to $1600 and then at $1613 the high achieved during the U.S. - Iranian prices in January.

Our studies also indicate that there is major support for gold at approximately $1560. Most importantly these studies indicate that if gold is able to effectively close above $1600 it could trade as high as $1632 before running into major resistance.

Wishing you as always, good trading,