Gold Prices On Aug 24 Dips As US Housing Sale Booms

Today, on 24th August, gold rates in the international market fell after yesterday's marginal hike. Gold prices in the international market dropped today after yesterday's data release of US housing sales. Today the spot gold price is quoted at the asking price of $1803.30/oz with a 2.20% negative change till 12.19 PM. The bidding price is also quoted at a 0.10% drop than yesterday. Additionally on COMEX, gold future is quoted at $1805.6/oz with a fall of 0.04%. Mirroring this, on MCX, October gold futures too sunk by 0.13% till 12.37 PM today.

US housing sale data: major look-out

Yesterday, US housing sales data was out that informs that the country's home sales rose 2% in July - above market expectations. The home sales growth occurred mostly in the upper-end market. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), "Existing home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted and annualised rate of 5.99 million units last month, compared to June's annualised rate of 5.87 million homes." It added, "Market consensus projections were calling for existing home sales to rise to 5.83 million." On an annual basis, July's existing-sale data shows that it was up 1.5%, compared to sales in June jumped about 23% from a year earlier. It was the period when states were affected by the pandemic and people were stuck at home due to lockdown.

Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist of NAR stated, "Although we shouldn't expect to see home prices drop in the coming months, there is a chance that they will level off as inventory continues to gradually improve. In the meantime, some prospective buyers who are priced out are raising the demand for rental homes and thereby pushing up the rental rates." Hence, gold prices edged down following the data release in the US, expecting a housing market boom in the country. This also shows how the US economy is gaining momentum. Today US dollar index is also ticking 0.01% higher after yesterday's fall. Earlier in August, gold prices experienced a major drop, suddenly after the US published its labour data showing positive reports - indicating an interest rate hike by the Fed.

Depreciation in the international gold prices is impacting negatively gold rates in the domestic prices of countries that import gold. India is one of those countries that imports a large amount of gold, thereby the gold rates are falling in India today.