1st September 2017

 Gold shook off two days of sluggishness to rally back strongly on Thursday, closing August on a monthly high. Silver also powered upwards, gaining $.14/ounce and there were good gains in both platinum and palladium as well, with the latter setting fresh highs. 

A renewed selloff in the dollar, coupled with fresh tensions with North Korea helped gold’s advance. The decline in the greenback was partly attributable to a macro report coming out of the US showing that annual inflation rose at its slowest pace since late 2015. In this regard, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index (ex-food and energy), showed a .9% rise in Q2, its slowest in more than two years. This is diminishing expectations of a Fed rate rise in December, with additional evidence of this reassessment also being reflected by the plunge in treasury yields that have been especially noticeable over the past two weeks.