Gold steadied ahead of key U.S. inflation data meanwhile U.S CPI figures have been under the microscope since early on this week with expectations of the figures dropping than the previous month of May. In fact, they are expected to drop to 0.5% from 0.6% unexpected increase last month.

While Core CPI which excludes food and energy and other volatile items is expected to also drop to 0.4% VS last month’s jump of 0.7% which had triggered markets.

Despite inflation monthly figures are expected to drop, and I doubt it would be as drastic as expectations, because of the summer season and all the traveling happening. We arguably still have one of the highest readings of inflation since pre-pandemic levels. So is it really an indicator that inflation will hit pause? I think not. (for the short-term)

So the point is, even if inflation figures do drop from the month of May, May figures certainly wowed markets as they were much higher than expected which presentably shines a light on gold as it’s occasionally used as an inflation hedge. And let us not forget the highly infectious delta variant that’s constantly weighing on markets but not the shiny yellow metal.

And Gold prices do seem to be picking up marginally, closing above the $1,800 mark, that’s ideal for bulls and if resistance is broken by $1825, there will be an opportunity to hit $1842.

CPI figures are important because they will provide us with more clues on the Fed's timeline for asset tapering and hiking interest rates and if you recall, the last time the Fed sounded hawkish markets literally flipped so I guess it’s better to be in the loop than be surprised later.