Monday opened with gold prices at $1,343.38 and the market slipped a bit to $1,341.98 by the close. The price of gold opened strongly up on Tuesday at $1,344.13 but then pulled back to $1,336.89 to end the day. Wednesday’s open surged significantly to $1,343.66 and kept the momentum going to close at $1,345.98. Thursday’s open again slipped to $1,340.19 but then blasted its way to close at $1,349.46, which marked the high for the week, reported the gold price chart. Friday opened with the price of gold slightly off at $1,345.35, and then the yellow metal pulled back to end the week at $1,333.39.
Trading opened last week to news of a sell-off in the bond market. The 10-year Treasury note hit yields of 2.727 percent briefly on Monday, a level not seen since 2014, on expectations of further rate hikes in 2018 and a bull market for commodities. After Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s last meeting on Wednesday, at which the Fed kept interest rates the same but signaled a more hawkish tone under Jerome Powell in 2018, Treasuries across the board pushed higher still, with the 10-year at 2.792 percent and the 30-year over 3.0 percent. 1 2
The week ended with a major stock market crash. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 665 points on Friday to mark the sixth-largest crash in the index’s history. 3 The S&P index and the Nasdaq also dropped around 2.1 percent and 1.96 percent, respectively. Market participants blamed rising interest rates, but many analysts have been calling the stock market bubble for some time. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan announced this week his fears that both the equities and bond markets are currently experiencing bubbles. 4 First Bitcoin, now equities, and soon bonds? The time is now for a flight to quality in precious metals.