Little Setback for Gold

Gold Adjusts as Dollar Gains Ground

Gold and it's fellow precious metals retracted a bit today in the face of a rising U.S. Dollar. While gold had soared to nearly $930 at the end of last week, it dropped in trading after the holiday weekend and now has settled in at about $905.

As the dollar continues it's struggle to regain ground against the Euro and other currencies, traders are watching for signs of strength. Poor economic data for Europe is slowly taking the lustre out of the Euro, just as similar economic problems diminished confidence in the dollar over the last ten months or more.

Crude oil held strong

around $130
, with gasoline prices at $4.00 a gallon accross most of the states. Reports from this holiday weekend will give a good indication of how American driverswill react to these high costs over the rest of 2008. I suspect that useage will be down from the same weekend last year, which will be a good sign for controling these bulbous investment driven prices.

Of course, at the root of most of our nations economic problems lies debt. In the simplest terms, personal debt weakens our economy and national debt weakens our currency. If I could be granted one wish for our country, it would be to have everyone use their economic stimulus rebates to pay down their person debt.