Islam Saeed Books
Monday, 06 February 2023 03:00 AM
Price saw gold In Egypt, a decrease of about 35 pounds over the course of the week’s sessions, where prices recorded the level of 1720 compared to the price of 1755 pounds at the beginning of the week, and the lowest price that 21 carat gold tested in Egypt was the level of 1700 pounds, and the highest price that the precious metal reached was 1770 pounds, throughout the week,
global gold market It witnessed several developments with a significant decline for gold after the employment report data revealed that the US economy added 517 thousand jobs in January 2023, and the unemployment rate decreased to 3.4%, which is the lowest level since 1969, and this surprised many as market expectations were around 185 thousand jobs. Only new ones, and the US services sector exceeded expectations in January, rising to 55.2% after contracting in December, according to a report. gold Bullion.
Friday’s data angered the Federal Reserve, which was fairly confident about inflation trends, as this service sector remains very strong and will keep wage pressures high. After raising interest rates at a 25 basis point slower pace on Wednesday, the Fed chief spoke. Federal Reserve Jerome Powell on progress in reducing inflation, and said: It is gratifying to see the process of reducing inflation is now under way. We can now say, for the first time, that the process of deinflation has begun, and we are already seeing it in commodity prices so far, however, Jerome Powell said that the services sector has not yet felt a slowdown in inflation.
And before Friday’s employment report, the markets were looking forward to the Fed ending the monetary tightening cycle in March 2023, but that’s changing now, and gold is reacting to that and that’s very destructive to gold prices. This is shockingly strong, and this indicates that wage pressures on inflation will not decrease soon.
After the best start to the year since 2012, gold was due for some profit-taking, and with the recent developments, there may be more selling next week, however, the bullish expectations in general remain despite the short-term downtrend, and no matter what. Ultimately what the Fed does, gold is going to do very well for the rest of the year.
One of the factors to watch in the first quarter will be the Fed’s purchase of gold after the official sector bought 1,136 tons – the most since 1967. It wasn’t just the Fed that bought gold, as the World Gold Council said central banks added 1,136 tons. About $70 billion worth of gold will be added to its stockpiles in 2022, the most in any year since 1967.
The data underscores a shift in attitudes towards gold since the 1990s and 2000s, when central banks, especially those in Western Europe that hold lots of bullion, sold hundreds of tons annually and since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, European banks have stalled. On the sale and bought a growing number of emerging economies such as Russia, Turkey and India.
Banks including Turkey, China, Egypt and Qatar said they bought gold last year. However, the World Gold Council said that about two-thirds of the gold that central banks bought last year was not publicly announced, in the same context, according to a report. COT The last issued on January 24, market participants net short positions amounted to 180,554 short contracts. Thus, the situation in the gold futures market deteriorated, and sends a report COT The first warning signs. However, a report can be classified COT as neutral.
For Egypt, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) on basic interest rates without change last Thursday in order to have the opportunity to assess the impact of the previous preemptive increases of 8% during 2022 on inflation, according to the bank. For the credit and debit rate and the main operation rate in the central bank.
The committee said that global commodity price expectations point to a slightly higher rise than expected at its previous meeting. He pointed out that the financial conditions of the US economy continued to improve, while the situation in the European Union stabilized. The Monetary Policy Committee noted the continued uncertainty about the outlook for global commodity prices at the present time. Several factors contributed to this situation, including the expected slowdown in global economic activity, the easing of precautionary measures related to the Corona virus epidemic in China, and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.
The Central Bank stated that economic activity recovered during the third quarter (the third quarter) of 2022, recording real GDP growth of 4.4%, compared to 3.3% in the second quarter of 2022, explaining that this recovery was driven by an improvement in the gross domestic product. . Economic activity in the sectors of tourism, agriculture, wholesale and retail trade.
In addition, most of the preliminary indicators continued to record positive growth rates, albeit at a slower pace, during the fourth quarter of 2022, and it is expected during the coming period that the GDP growth rate will follow at a moderate pace during the fiscal year. 2022/2023 compared to the previous fiscal year, before it rose again after that. With regard to the labor market, the committee indicated that the unemployment rate recorded 7.4% during the third quarter of 2022, compared to 7.2% during the previous quarter.
The committee indicated that the annual general inflation rate rose to 21.3% in December 2022, and the annual core inflation rate continued to rise to 24.4% during the same month. The annual general inflation rate averaged 18.7% during the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to the target. previously announced by the Central Bank of 7% (± 2%) on average over the same period.
In the same context, the exchange rate of the dollar against the pound broke the level of 30 pounds per dollar and traded above it most of the days of last week, to close the week, recording 30.33 pounds per dollar.
