(Bloomberg News) Silver and gold climbed to records and oil rose for a fourth day, while the dollar weakened, amid concern inflation will accelerate. U.S. stocks retreated before a report on new-home sales.
Silver for immediate delivery gained 1.5% at 9:33 a.m. in New York after earlier jumping 5.4% to $49.79 an ounce. Gold climbed for a ninth day, while oil rose 0.6% in New York. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index slipped 0.1% while Canada's S&P/TSX Composite Index advanced 0.1% after Barrick Gold Corp. agreed to buy Equinox Minerals Ltd. for C$7.3 billion ($7.68 billion) in cash. The dollar weakened versus 11 of 16 major peers and the yen fell against all 16.
The dollar's retreat came as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve's statement on interest rates and the economic outlook in two days. The homes sales data may bolster speculation the Fed will announce plans to complete its purchase of $600 billion of Treasuries by June. Other data this week may show Japan's retail sales sank and U.S. economic growth slowed, leading the nation's central banks to keep interest rates near zero, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
"Japan and the U.S. are the countries that can't steer toward monetary tightening, so the yen and dollar will be weak," said Daisaku Ueno, president of Gaitame.com Research Institute Ltd. in Tokyo, a unit of Japan's largest currency margin company.
Fed Meeting
The Federal Open Market Committee will hold the benchmark rate in a range of zero to 0.25% on April 27, according to all 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. GDP rose at a 1.9% annual pace after increasing at a 3.1% rate in the previous three months, according to the median estimate of 66 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before an April 28 Commerce Department report.
The Dollar Index slid 0.3% to 73.882. The gauge, used by IntercontinentalExchange Inc. to track the greenback versus the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, touched 73.735 on April 21, the lowest since August 2008.
The S&P 500 last week increased 1.3%, triggered by profit that topped estimates at companies from Intel Corp. to Johnson & Johnson. Earnings-per-share have exceeded analysts' estimates at 81% of the 124 companies in the index that have reported results since April 11, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
U.S. stock markets were closed on April 22 for the Good Friday holiday.
Home Sales