Gold Declines Over US$20, Ending Five Consecutive Days of Gains / Crude Oil Inventories Fell Less than Expected

Spot gold closed at US$1815.25 per ounce, down US$21.85 or 1.19%. The highest intraday hit US$1843.58 per ounce and the lowest US$1813.13 per ounce. As of Tuesday, gold prices have risen for five consecutive trading days, which is the longest rise since January 5. Excluding the volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI increased by 3% over the same period in 2020 and 0.9% month-on-month. Higher data may put pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates early, and this concern has led to a sell-off of interest rate-sensitive technology stocks this week. The report should be good for gold prices, because gold is seen as an inflation hedge; however, some analysts pointed out that rising inflation may force the Fed to raise interest rates faster than expected.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced that crude oil inventories fell by 427,000 barrels last week, compared to the market’s original forecast of 2.817 million barrels. During the period, gasoline inventories increased by 378,000 barrels, which is expected to decrease by 600,000 barrels. As for distillate oil inventories, a decrease of 1.733 million barrels is expected, and the market is expected to decrease by 1.08 million barrels. In addition, the United States imports an average of 5.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, an increase of 37,000 barrels on a weekly basis. Although the decrease in US crude oil inventories was lower than expected, it had little impact on oil prices. Oil prices in New York temporarily hovered at the level of US$65/barrel.