Financial markets

The bottom line is gold’s sharp pullback in recent weeks was sparked by a series of gold-futures shorting attacks.

The big worry for the markets is the fact that anti-Euro candidate Marin Le Pen could potentially win.

Over the past few weeks several political and geopolitical factors goaded safe haven assets higher, providing a particularly positive environment for gold and helping to push it past this fairly important resistance.

The price of gold entered 2017’s Easter long weekend on a five-month high in response to a cascade of geopolitical events and mid-week comments by United States President Donald J. Trump.

The US owes the world 453,000 tonnes of gold which is almost 3 times all the gold ever produced in history.

For the third consecutive time since the tightening cycle began in December 2015, gold rallied on the back of a Fed hike.

In order to understand the world of finance today – post-gold standard-, post- 2008 crisis-, zero rates- and QE- finance – it makes sense, sometimes, to turn to others than economists.

The United States Federal Reserve carried through on weeks of speculation by boosting its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to a range between 0.75 and one percent.

In the Roman calendar, the Ides of March was the same as March 15th in today’s calendar. This date was not significant until Julius Caesar was assassinated on 15 March 44BC. Shakespeare then coined the phrase “Beware of the Ides of March” in his Julius Caesar work. So will March 15, 2017 be sign...

After a challenging Q4 in 2016 in a context of rising bond yields and a stronger US dollar, gold seems to be getting its shine back in Q1.