Gold prices way below last week’s all-time high as stocks worldwide surge
ALBAWABA – A Wall Street rally over the weekend drove stocks worldwide ahead of the upcoming holidays as gold prices dipped way below the highs they reached last week.
Up 0.2 percent over five days, the S&P 500 rose for the sixth straight week, marking its longest advance since 2019 as it touched its highest point on Friday, according to Bloomberg.
The S&P 500 index was up 0.41 percent by 1131 Amman Time on Sunday, with the NASDAQ and Dow Jones both up 0.45 percent and 0.36 percent, respectively.
Bets the Federal Reserve (Fed) will cut interest rates sooner than expected have fueled a raly in United States (US) equities, according to Reuters. A rapid decline in Treasury yields, after the rise on Friday, also helped boost the rally.
Friday's stronger-than-expected jobs and consumer sentiment data, combined with a rise in yields, bolstered bets that the Fed “could lean more hawkish” next week, Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, told Reuters.
However, the federal funds futures market on Friday priced in a 46 percent chance the fed will cut rates at their March meeting, and a nearly 80 percent chance in May, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Stocks worldwide rally as gold prices dip - Shutterstock
Many investors believe stocks can continue rising in the weeks and months ahead, as reported by Reuters, with the S&P 500 just 4 percent from making a fresh all-time high.
The Wall Street rally has pushed stocks worldwide into the green, with London’s FTSE 100 up 0.54 percent, Paris’ CAC up 1.32 percent and the European Stoxx up 0.74 percent.
European shares closed at their highest on Friday since February 2022 with the STOXX 600 index up 0.80 percent. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.29 percent and was poised for a sixth straight weekly gain, its longest streak in four years.
Asia Pacific indexes were also mostly up, except for the FTSA Burma Malaysia, Hang Seng, HNX 30, Nikkei 225 and the Philippines stock indexes.
Shanghai and the JSX were both up, with Nikkei futures also in the green, according to Reuters, and the EGX and BB All Share indexes in the Middle East both ticking higher.
The S&P 500 is up nearly 20 percent in 2023, having made the biggest monthly gain this year in November, and gold prices hit an all-time high last week, but have since shed most of their gains.
Gold futures are down 1.25 percent, at $2,004.6 per ounce on Reuters, with spot gold prices down 1.15 percent by 1153 Amman Time, according to GoldPrice.org.
Gold prices fell from an all-time high of $2,072.04 per ounce on December 1 to $2,004.55 earlier on Sunday, marking a 3.2 percent decline inside a week.
Over the span of a month, however, gold prices are 3.53 percent higher than 30 years ago and 12.84 percent higher than a year ago.
