XAUUSD XAU/USD

The US Nonfarm Payrolls came out as high as one could only imagine. The economy surprisingly created 272,000 new jobs in May, today's data revealed, compared to expert pools consensus projections at 182,000. Yet, no market bull actually wanted this nasty surprise, as it may rather prolong the era of both nationally and globally elevated interest rates. Average hourly earnings grew by 0.4% month-on-month, giving a potential price pressure message after 0.2% only in April. The unemployment rate at 4.0% after 3.9% was the only worse-than-expected position to paradoxically form a kind of light stripe in today's set of Labour Department's statistics.

As a result, the S&P 500 broad market indicator lost just about 0.7% within an hour of the crowd's response on Wall Street. Two or three more dozens of points could be still wasted at some moment during this choppy session, yet the Olympic style of calmness would be a more fitting behaviour for a noble man or woman, especially if he or she is a stock investor and not a currency trader. Currency traders now may care about new possible records on USDJPY, as the Japanese Yen may be going to storm its 160 barrier again, while EURUSD got itself further away from approaching 1.10 in the foreseeable future. Longer periods of hawkish Fed's policy (at least until November) make the Greenback a top choice among other reserve currencies.

As to stock investments, I feel that inflation worries, based on higher salary indications, would serve as a lifeline in the sea of doubts, because money is keeping its inspiration to escape from inflation threats, even when this money remains more expensive in terms of credit payment. If so, inflation pessimists will be bound to turn into Wall Street optimists once again, as most of them have no other choice where to put any excessive fund flows. If only the S&P 500 dares to touch the area below 5,300, most of the crowd would become so thirsty for buying fresh dips in any popular stocks.

At the same time, Gold began to sink, as higher-for-longer bond yields prospects partially derailed its ability to attract discriminating investors. Therefore, I decided to close my long positions in XAUUSD, which I successfully reinforced at nearly $2265 per ounce in early April. The yellow metal's path from below $2000 in the very start of 2024 to $2450 at the last decade of May is probably interrupted for a while, and I prefer to wait and see outside gold investments. I am not sure the major technical support area between $2280 and $2315 will survive, but time will show.