Gold seemed to be stabilizing at the end of last week. Commodities remained weak. Steel has fallen 31% this year. Brent crude is off 17% since early February. And copper is down 15%.
Copper is the metal you need to make almost anything – houses, cars, electronics. When it goes down, it generally means the world economy is getting soft.
At the start of last week, the conventional analysis of the gold sell-off was that the central banks' efforts to revive global growth were working. The feds had the situation under control. So who needed gold?
By the end of the week, it appeared that gold – and commodities – had sold off for the opposite reason: because central banks' money printing wasn't working and the world was slipping further into a period of slow growth and barely contained depression. From Business Insider:
Recent U.S. economic data has been disappointing, especially in the realm of housing, which is what the US bull case is all about.
In Germany, dubbed the strong arm of Europe, economic sentiment just fell.
And growth has begun to slow in China –
