Gold price holds steady after mass of data – BULLION AFTERNOON

Otmane El Rhazi from The Bullion Desk.

Gold price was little changed on Tuesday afternoon around two-week highs but trading sideways in a busy day for data.

The spot gold price was last at $1,190/1,191 per ounce, up $1 on Monday’s close and confined to a $10 intraday range.

Earlier today, gold shrugged off disappointing Chinese PMI numbers. The China flash HSBC/Markit PMI fell to 49.2 in March, below the 50-point level that separates expansion from contraction. This compared with a forecast 50.5 and February’s final PMI of 50.7.

“The poor reading is further evidence that Chinese economic activity continues to weaken despite two interest rate cuts, a reduction in reserve requirements and the ‘fast-tracking’ of several spending measures, illustrating the limits of the government’s ability to ‘manage’ an increasingly unwieldy economy,” INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir said.

From the US, the core and full CPI both rose 0.2 percent in February. This is the first positive CPI reading since October when the QE taper ended, indicating a return to an inflationary environment.

The flash manufacturing PMI and new home sales were also better than the forecast at 55.3 and 539,000 respectively. But the HPI disappointed at 0.3 percent as did the Richmond manufacturing index at -8.

The US fourth-quarter GDP figure, which is expected to be revised higher, is due later this week.

In other data, the EU PMI at 51.9 beat the forecast 51.6 and the German reading at 52.4 was better than the expected 51.5 although the French indicator was 48.2 versus 48.9.

The dollar was last at 1.0922 against the euro, down two fifths of a cent and well below recent highs.

In other news, Greece said it will present a list of reforms to its eurozone partners by next Monday in order to unlock more funding and avert bankruptcy. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday to discuss the outline of the reforms.

“All this looks good in terms of optics, but with no concrete proposals being discussed, we are still in wait-and-see mode,” Meir said.

In the other metals, silver was little changed at $16.92/16.97 per ounce, platinum at 1,136/1,141 was down $9 and palladium was $12 lower at $762/767.

(Editing by Mark Shaw)

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