13th January 2017

Gold pushed above the $1,200/ ounce mark at one point on Thursday to a seven-week high, but backed off over the course of the day as a round of profit-taking set in. Nevertheless, the precious metal is up some 7% since hitting a mid-December low and we suspect that if the dollar continues to weaken (it hit a five-week low on Thursday), we could see further advances over the balance of the month. Also constructive for gold, would be a wobbly US stock market; although equities were down sharply at one point earlier in the day on Thursday, they did pare their losses by the close.