Easter Friday and western markets are taking a breather for the day. Yesterday’s price action in gold and silver was mildly encouraging from a bull’s standpoint, with the gold price sticking comfortably above $1,600, buoyed partly perhaps by the pain in Spain, which is taking up increasing space in news headlines. The silver price stabilised after its drop on Wednesday, but looks like it’s going to continue consolidating below $33 for a little while longer.
One of the more interesting news items in recent days came from Reuters – a discussion of food price inflation. Reuters notes that data is expected to confirm that world food prices rose for their third successive month in March, with high oil prices a contributing factor. Droughts in South America have also led to a spike in US soybean futures.
Unmentioned as ever is the impact of quantitative easing by the world’s central banks, which is flooding the banking system with new money, and thus depressing the values of currencies relative to hard assets. Little wonder then, that eurozone inflation stood at 2.6% in March – despite the depression in periphery countries. Rising prices in combination with economic contraction equals misery for many. Hello stagflation.