27-Jan (USAGOLD) — Gold remains well bid, eking out additional 6-week highs following this week’s assurance that the Fed will keep its foot on the gas at least into late-2014. Additionally, rumors continue to circulate that a deal with private holders of Greek debt is close at hand. This has lifted the euro at the expense of the dollar. A weaker dollar has a supportive impact on gold.

Of course we’ve been hearing about a deal on Greece for several weeks now. In fact, the original “deal” in principle was actually allegedly struck back in October of last year. In the wake of yesterday’s report that that Greece’s funding gap may be wider than previously thought. Well, that’s something we’ve been hearing with a disturbing degree of regularity dating back to the first iteration of the Greek crisis in late-2009, when it was determined that data reported to Eurostat where a complete fabrication.

The most significant events this week regarding gold were the Fed’s extended guidance, the Fed initiating inflation targeting and Senate approval of yet another $1.2 trillion bump in the US debt ceiling. And having never met a debt ceiling we couldn’t ultimately exceed…I have no delusions that $16.39 TRILLION is where this madness will end…

• University of Michigan consumer sentiment (final) rose to 75.0 in Jan, above market expectations, vs 74.0 preliminary read.
• US Q4 GDP (advanced) +2.8%, below market expectations of +3.0%, vs 1.8% in Q3.
• Germany import price index +0.3% m/m in Dec, in-line with expectations, vs +0.4% in Nov; 3.9% y/y.
• Switzerland KOF Leading Indicator -0.17 in Jan, below market expectations of -0.05, vs 0.01 in Dec.
• Eurozone M3 (sa) grew at a 1.6% annual pace in Dec, below market expectations of 2.2% y/y, vs 2.0% y/y in Nov.
• Japan CPI (National) -0.2% y/y in Dec, vs -0.5% y/y in Nov.
• Japan Total Retail Sales rebounded to 2.5% y/y in Dec, vs -2.2% y/y in Nov.