GoldPrice.

Good morning, traders; Welcome to our market week preview, where we take a look at the economic data, market news and headlines likely to have the biggest impact the price of gold this week and beyond, as well as market prices for silver, the US Dollar, and other key correlated assets.

Gold prices are slipping today, following an extended market weekend in the US. Multiple intrinsic and external factors are weighing on the yellow metal this morning: negatively correlated assets like the US Dollar and US Treasury yields have been rallying since the overnight sessions (the benchmark 10-year yield has moved well above 1.35% again); fundamentally, precious metals markets are pulling back and correcting to some extent following Friday’s sharp run higher into a holiday weekend.

There may be air-pockets below $1810/oz, but it’s reasonable to anticipate strong support at $1800 (though never guaranteed.)

With a very light macroeconomic calendar for this truncated week, the focus beyond numbers will be on assessing just what last Friday’s disappointing labor market data means for the (likely delayed) timing of the Fed’s taper, the US economy’s post-pandemic recovery, and (eventually) a higher interest rate environment.

For now, let’s take a look at the rest of the calendar ahead.

US Economic Data to Watch

Thursday, September 9 at 830am EDT // Initial Jobless Claims

[consensus est.: +343K // prev.: +340K]

Labor market data will continue to be the hot topic on the macro calendar through the end of this quarter and (almost certainly) beyond, following Fed Chair Powell’s remarks at Jackson Hole in August and last week’s letdown of a Jobs number. Ironically, that miss in payrolls might lessen any market impact that weekly Jobless Claims might have this month; After all, a slow-but-steady trend of falling Initial Claims over the last several weeks still led a report detailing much weaker jobs growth than economists projected.

This will remain a key data point to be aware of, however, for as long as the progress of the US labor market recovery is positioned by the Fed as the determining factor in the central bank’s near-term policies.

FedSpeak this Week

Multiple Federal Reserve officials are scheduled to make public appearances this week as part of events focused on various topics, but all investors and Fed-watchers will want to hear about is these FOMC participants’ interpretation of last Friday’s disappointing jobs number. The main focus now—and likely for the remainder of the year—will be on trying to project just how long “delayed” the Fed’s taper will be, now that the US labor recovery has hit (at best) a temporary snag. The first step in that calculus will be hearing (at parsing) what these FOMC members choose to share publicly. Below are the most relevant appearances that are scheduled, although I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that we might see some TV/radio appearances crop up this week as well.

Wednesday: New York Fed President John Williams (FOMC voter) (110pm EDT); Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan (non-voter) (6pm)

Thursday: San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly (FOMC voter) (1105am); Fed Governor Michelle Bowman (FOMC voter) (1pm); New York President Williams (2pm); Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari (non-voter) (2pm)

Friday: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester (non-voter) (9am)

And that’s how the week lays out ahead of us, traders. As always, I wish you all the very best of luck in your markets in the coming days, and I’ll look forward to seeing you all back here on Friday for our market-week wrap up.