Janet Yellen, Fed’s Chairman, stated on Friday that most probably a rate hike will occur this year, though the timing will be given by the economic outlook. Other details given by her at the Philip Gamble Memorial Lecture held by the University of Massachusetts regard the factors leading to the presumable rate hike: a continuous fall in unemployment and increasing economic tailwinds, both getting having positive prospects. Also, she emphasized the need of timeliness and a gradual pace in the policy tightening because a lack of either of them can lead in abrupt future policy changes. Yellen stressed the inflation downfall as transitory, expecting it to reach 2% in the next few years.

Except Yellen’s speech, Friday also came with the release of a third estimate over US’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) by the Commerce Department. As per results, GDP was revised higher, exceeding the 3.7% from last revision and reaching 3.9% growth. Behind this spike are higher consumer spending and recovering business investments. Consumer spending went up 3.6% (expected 3.1%), exports grew 5.1% and imports rose 3%.

EUR/USD recovered its losses on Friday and close to the session ending managed to break through the 1.200 threshold. Throughout the American session, Euro outperformed against all currencies, especially against the pound. The major was about to close a second weak on the negative side, but it managed to break even, and a little more on top of that. During the week, the support tine around the 1.1080 -1.1100 was tested several times, but the trend managed to stay on top.

The yellow metal managed to keep ground against the upward revision of US’s Q2 GDP (which was mentioned earlier in the article) and positive treasury yields according to latest official release, all-in-all meaning that bets over the rate hike favors gains. A glimpse in the technical analysis shows us that the hourly 50-MA at $1.140 per ounce had reversed as the metal started to linger in the $1.144-$1.145/Oz. area. The upward revision of the GDP on behalf of strong consumption pushed higher the 2-years treasury yield, making it to reach 0.743%, but settling after at 0.72% going up 4 basis points across all day. Overall, Gold kept strong against the new US GDP figure. The next things investors are turning their eye at is the sentiment over on Wall Street and the USD index, which by the way went up 0.55% and the influence is yet to bee see in the metal’s trend.