Gold Spot Price Open: $1,139
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,135
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.35
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.71
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.36
Precious metals posted mixed results on Monday as investors decided to take their chances on riskier stock market investments. When all was said and done, gold lost a few dollars while silver managed to gain a bit more than thirty cents. Platinum and palladium fell on Monday too, with platinum losing a few dollars while palladium lost around ten.
Investors Keen to Take on Risk
Risk-appetite was surging to begin this week, which is something that did precious metals’ spot values no favors whatsoever. Thanks to more interest in equities, gold and silver are once again finding it difficult to gain much of any traction. Helping keep the spot values of gold and silver afloat, however, are sub-par pieces of economic data from the United States. To close out last week we were dealt an employment report from September that fell far short of expectations. Convinced that perhaps the Fed may have to hold off on hiking interest rates anytime soon, the overall attitude of the global marketplace is beginning to change.
For gold and silver, this week may be crucial in determining the trajectory of spot values as we head further into October and into the last few months of the year. According to Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank, “Gold’s technical outlook continues to improve but we are at a critical level…a break above $1,170 could indicate the selling is over and a break below $1,100 could signal we are going down to $1,000.” It will be interesting to see how this week plays out as the FOMC’s October meeting is a mere few weeks away from taking place. At this juncture, however, there are very few people who think that interest rates in the US will be hiked.
Dollar Weaker Thanks to Rate Hike Expectations
The US Dollar is trending lower against many rivals on Monday as last week’s poor economic and employment data continue to weigh on the greenback. The Dollar is believed to be an asset that would benefit greatly from a Federal Reserve rate hike, so the fact that such a hike continues to be pushed backwards is only hurting the Dollar. Now, mostly thanks to last week’s data, a growing number of investors and market experts have become convinced that rate hikes will have to wait until early in 2016, at the earliest.
Despite the Dollar’s relative weakness over the past few days, it is still performing well against many rivals. This is so because institutions such as the Bank of Japan and European Central Bank are rumored to be on the verge of making monetary policies even more accomodative. Though there is little concrete evidence to support these rumors, it is quite clear that becoming more accomodative are the aforementioned central banks’ only real option as we move forward through tough economic times. If easier money does come to fruition, it will be interesting to see just how high the Dollar might be able to climb against rival currencies.
Wrap-Up
When things wrapped up on Monday investors did not have all that much to reflect on mainly because the focus of the marketplace remains on last week’s economic data from the US. As we look ahead to the next four days, you can bet that we will hear increased speculation with regard to what the future holds for interest rates in the US. There isn’t all that much else going on across the global marketplace, and for that reason I find it hard to believe that investors will have much else to talk about besides rates and when they might be potentially hiked.
