Gold Spot Price Open: $1,246
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,233
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$13
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.26
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.26
Change in Silver Spot Price: NO CHANGE
Precious metals finished the day Thursday mixed, but were, for the most part, trading downward for a majority of the day. When all was said and done, gold lost more than ten dollars while silver finished the day in about the same position it was in when things got started. Platinum ended the day with mixed results; platinum being down and palladium up, both by about ten dollars.
Stocks Surge on Calmer Geopolitical Atmosphere, Upbeat Corporate Earnings
Despite moving drastically downward only day ago, US equity indexes rallied today. Though there is still a lot of volatility present in global equity markets, the global investing atmosphere has calmed down significantly this week thanks to a lack of any noteworthy geopolitical happenings. On top of that, corporate earnings reports being made public in the United States have been mostly upbeat this week, and this is only coming to the aid of the recently ailing equity indexes.
Despite the shooting in Canada on Wednesday injecting a bit of instability into the marketplace, things have calmed down significantly from where they were a week ago. Now, investors will be keen to analyze US equity markets going forward in order to see if the volatility we witnessed last week has evaporated or if we are just witnessing a calm in the midst of a bigger storm. For precious metals, the stabilization of equity markets has acted as a weight, limiting buying interest significantly.
Dollar Continues Making Gains Versus Yen, Other Rivals
The Dollar moved around quite a bit today, but ended up making healthy gains against the Yen and many other rival currencies. For 6 consecutive days now, the Dollar has made solid advances against the Yen; the best such venture forward since last August. Helping the Dollar along today was a report indicating that last week emitted the fewest jobless claims in almost 15 years. This assuaged concerns regarding the possible sluggishness the US economy may see in the coming months.
According to Sireen Harajli, of Mizuho Bank Ltd., “Data in the U.S. this week continues to support the view that the U.S. continues to grow at higher rates compared to other areas of the world. The overall theme of a stronger US Dollar, that has not really changed.” So long as investors from around the world are convinced that European Central Bank leaders are on the verge of announcing fresh monetary stimulus plans, it is likely that the Dollar will continue to grow in strength and value. As an asset that tends to compete directly with precious metals, the Dollar’s strength will more than likely prevent gold and silver from making any gains worth talking about.
Wrap-Up
Gold’s near 1% decline can be attributed to the aforementioned factors just as easily as it can be attributed to waning physical demand. While uncertainty abounded during last week’s 5-day trading session, something that boosted demand, this week has seen things be much calmer, and that much has hurt demand and, thus, spot values. As we look ahead to the final day of this trading week, it will be interesting to see if gold and silver are able to bounce back, or if a third consecutive day of losses will result in weekly losses for precious metals.
