Stocks Gain, Gold Jumps on Goldilocks Economic Outlook

• Bond prices and the global stock market gauge rose on Thursday after tamed producer prices and a jump in weekly jobless claims bolstered bets that the Federal Reserve may soon pause its hiking of interest rates to tame high inflation.
• Gold zoomed to a 13-month high and the dollar weakened after the data lowered expectations that the Fed will again raise rates in May. This brought relief to investors worried that tight monetary policy could provoke a U.S. recession. The Labour Department's producer price index for final demand dropped 0.5% in March, the most since April 2020, after being unchanged in February, while the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose to a three-month high last week.
• Meanwhile, the consumer price index rose 0.1% in March on a month-over-month basis. Economists expected an increase of 0.2%, according to Dow Jones. Year-over-year, the CPI rose 5% while economists had forecast a 5.1% advance. That year-over-year figure is also lower than the 6% jump seen in February. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, rose 0.4% month over month.

(Source: Reuters)