The average hourly earnings in the United States increased by 0.4% in October, doubling the previous month’s rise of 0.2%. Retail sales remained steady at $732.6 billion, not meeting the expectation of a 0.1% increase.<\/p>\n
Gold reached above $4,300, benefiting from the USD’s weakness as the unemployment rate rose to 4.6% and PMI indicated less growth in the private sector. Meanwhile, BNB fell around $855, as rising retail activity reflected increased bearish sentiment according to its on-chain and derivatives data.<\/p>\n
The EUR\/USD gained ground, nearing 1.1800 as the US Dollar weakened. This followed employment reports showing Nonfarm Payrolls falling by 105,000 in October but increasing by 64,000 in November.<\/p>\n
GBP\/USD saw gains, trading above 1.3430, as the British Pound was buoyed by positive PMI data. This was in contrast to the US Dollar, which struggled due to mixed employment figures and lower-than-expected PMI results. Gold maintained its position around $4,300 after recovering from earlier bearish trends.<\/p>\n
The information provided in this article does not serve as investment advice, and the authors are not registered as investment advisors.<\/p>\n
Based on the latest data, the US economy is showing clear signs of a slowdown heading into the end of the year. We are seeing flat retail sales and a weak jobs report, with a net loss of jobs two months ago and only a small gain in November. This suggests that the consumer is getting weaker and businesses are pulling back on hiring.<\/p>\n
The rise in the unemployment rate to 4.6% is a significant red flag for the market. Looking back, we haven’t seen unemployment this high since the post-pandemic recovery phase of early 2022, signaling a definite cooling in the labor market. This trend is consistent with recent reports showing that US household credit card debt has surpassed a record $1.5 trillion, limiting future spending.<\/p>\n
Given this backdrop of US economic weakness, we should position for continued US Dollar softness over the next few weeks. Derivative traders could consider buying put options on dollar-tracking ETFs or shorting dollar futures directly. The conflicting signals of rising wages and a slowing economy also make buying volatility through VIX futures an attractive strategy to hedge against market uncertainty.<\/p>\n
We are seeing this dollar weakness play out in currency pairs, with both the Euro and British Pound pushing higher. The pound looks particularly strong, trading above 1.3430 on the back of its own upbeat economic prints. We believe using call options or long futures contracts on GBP\/USD and EUR\/USD is a direct way to trade this divergence.<\/p>\n
Gold\u2019s strength above $4,300 an ounce confirms a broader flight to safety and an erosion of confidence in the economic outlook. Historically, gold performs well during periods of stagflation, which seems to be what we are entering now. We should expect this trend to continue, making long positions in gold futures or call options on gold ETFs a logical move.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the crypto market appears to be on weak footing, as seen with BNB sliding to $855. The rise in retail derivative activity is often a contrary indicator, suggesting that more downside could be coming for assets like this. This may present an opportunity for bearish positions, such as buying put options or shorting BNB futures.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gold surges past $4,300 amid USD weakness; mixed employment data impacts EUR\/USD and GBP\/USD movements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":16965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}