By 
By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com — “It never rains but it pours,” is the saying. After small but steady daily gains that came like the pitter-patter of rain, it’s just pouring now in gold land.
Both futures of the yellow metal on New York’s Comex and bullion traded on the spot gold market jumped about 2% Tuesday — their most in nearly two weeks — burrowing deeper into $2,000 territory, with the view of possibly setting new record highs in days.
Gold’s latest run-up after a one-week hiatus to a four-week rally is “a sign that traders are not budging from their view that U.S. interest rates are at or near their peak and expect them to fall this year,” said Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA.
“A move above this would bring record highs around $2,070 into sharp focus but that may depend on future interest rate expectations being pared back further and some more risk aversion in the markets.”
Gold for June delivery on New York’s Comex settled at $2,038.20 an ounce, up $37.80, or 1.9%, after a session high of $2,043.25.
The spot price of gold, more closely followed than futures by some traders, got to above $2,025. Spot trading in gold usually settles after 18:00 ET (22:00 GMT).
Gold’s record high for futures stands at $2,078.80 while the all-time peak for the spot price is at $2,072.90.
“The spot price’s reach of $2,025 confirms the continuation of the bullish trend that’s dominated gold this week, reminding us that the next station is located at $2,040, a level futures have already breached,” said Sunil Kumar Dixit, chief technical strategist at SKCharting.com.
“The next leg higher of $2,060 will bring us closer to the record high that looks increasingly certain by the day. But if we fail to hold above $2,010, then we’ll get pushed down towards support areas of $2,000 and $1,990 on the spot market,” Dixit added.
Tuesday’s advance in gold came on the back of data showing U.S. job openings slipped to 9.9 million in February, the fewest since May 2021, amid signs that the job market may be starting to cool — handing welcome news to inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve.
The Fed has added 475 basis points to U.S. rates over the past 13 months, bringing them to a peak of 5%.
Until the job openings data emerged on Tuesday, there had been bets that the Fed would resort to one more hike at least in May to further cool headline inflation that expanded at 6% per annum in January versus the central bank’s target of 2%. That expectation was reinforced by a 5% jump in global oil prices on Monday, following a surprise output cut by producers in OPEC+. Oil prices are one of the major drivers of headline inflation.
But as of Tuesday, money markets traders followed by Investing.com seemed to be betting that the Fed may be done with its hiking cycle.
The latest reading of Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool showed only a 42.2% probability of the central bank raising another quarter point in rates in May. Bets for a stay were at 57.8%.
