Gold recovers from early Friday selloff ahead of US PMI release
LONDON (February 21) Gold’s price (XAU/USD) was smacked down over 1% from its Thursday all-time high of $2,954 at one point during the Asian trading session on Friday and starts to recover ahead of the US trading session around $2,930 at the time of writing. The move comes ahead of the United States (US) preliminary Purchase Managers Index (PMI) reading for February and after the US President Trump administration commented on the possibility of lifting sanctions against Russia.
Meanwhile, S&P Global and Hamburg Commercial Bank (HCOB) data showed that business activity in the services sector declined in February in France, Germany and the overall Eurozone, with the French preliminary Services PMI data falling further into contraction to 44.5, missing the 48.9 estimate and contracting further from the previous 48.2.
Now, all eyes will be on the US preliminary S&P Global PMI data for February. The services sector will be the leading indicator, expected to tick up to 53.0 from 52.9 in January.
The focus will move to Germany this weekend for the general election, being held on Sunday and where the far-right party Alternative for Germany(AfD), which enjoys great participation from Elon Musk, could be up for a landslide victory.
Daily digest market movers: Quick fix
- The US Trump administration signaled that sanctions relief for Russia could be on the table in talks over the war in Ukraine as US President Donald Trump wants to have a quick resolution for the conflict, Bloomberg reports.
- Shares from Chinese Laopu Gold Co. Ltd, a company that manufactures and sells jewelry, rose as much as 21% to a record high after its net profits more than tripled this year, bucking a slowdown in luxury spending, Reuters reports.
- South African company Sibanye Stillwater Ltd.’s full-year loss narrowed after higher Gold prices offset low Palladium rates that weighed on the company’s US mining operations. The loss came in at $398 million for 2024, Bloomberg data reports.
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