Up nearly 1%, gold was trading around USD 1745 an ounce,supported by the weakness of the dollar and the fall in treasury yields. In addition, the FDArecommended a pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccines after 6 cases ofblood clots in 7 million doses applied
Wall Street had its indexes mixed today, with the Dow Jones falling more than 100 points, theS&P 500 little changed and Nasdaq up almost 1%. In Europe, indiceswere little changed by the second session, with the DAX 30 rising 0.1% and renewingrecord high at 15230.
The Zew Indicator of Economic Sentiment for Germany fell 5.9 points in April incompared to the previous month to 70.7, not far from the September 20-year high of77.4, but well below market expectations of 79.0. It was the first time sinceNovember that the indicator fell, as fears of more severe quarantine measuresstringent measures have led to a drop in expectations for private consumption. Even though,the outlook for exports was better than the previous month. About76% of the analysts interviewed predicted an improvement in economic activity in thenext six months, while 5% expected deterioration and 19% did not seechanges.
The annual inflation rate in the USA jumped to 2.6% in March 2021, from 1.7% inFebruary, slightly above the 2.5% projections. It is the highest reading since August2018 with the main upward pressure from energy (13.2% vs 3.7% inFebruary), gasoline (22.5% vs 1.6%), electricity (2.5% vs 2.3%) and gas service (9.8%vs 6.7%). Prices also accelerated for used cars and trucks (9.4% vs9.3%), shelter (1.7% vs 1.5%) and new vehicles (1.5% vs 1.2%), while inflationdecelerated for medical services (2.7% vs 3%) and food (3.5% vs 3.6%). Furthermore,the cost of clothing continued to fall (-2.5% vs -3.6%). A jump in costs ofcommodities and materials, accompanied by supply constraints, are pushingproducer prices up and some companies are passing these costs on tocustomers
