Gold Spot Price Open: $1,092
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,089
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$3
Silver Spot Price Open: $14.48
Silver Spot Price Close: $14.42
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.06
Precious metals continued to fall on Wednesday, but losses were limited thanks to some uptick in physical demand for metals thanks to the Indian holiday of Diwali. When all was said and done, gold lost another few dollars while silver’s losses came somewhat close to ten cents. Platinum and palladium lost on the day, with both metals moving downward by roughly 20 dollars.
Diwali Helps Metals Marginally
Today brought about the annual Indian festival of Diwali. Though you may not know much about this holiday, it is traditional that gifts are given, and many parents and grandparents enjoy gifting precious metals. For this reason, jewelers and other dealers of gold and silver products are expecting sales this week to increase dramatically. While this may not be presently helping push spot values forward much, it is helping to limit losses.
Not helping precious metals, however, is the fact that crude oil moved lower in trading today. As a leading commodity, the movement of crude oil’s price often dictates that of gold and silver. As has been the case for nearly a full week or more now, market conditions are stacked against precious metals and it is looking like it will stay that way.
Stocks Trade Mostly Flat, More Downbeat Chinese Data Delivered
Trading across the US was quieter today as many people took the day off in order to celebrate the Veterans’ Day holiday. Retail store stocks suffered on the day, however, as Macy’s reported some less than impressive figures. Macy’s shares fell by nearly 14% thanks to the massive retailer commenting on poor sales of winter clothing. With the Summer lasting almost until the beginning of November, people have not been as compelled to stock up on wintry clothing. While that may change in the coming weeks, the early season was more or less a wash. Third quarter revenue was also less than impressive, reported at $5.9 billion as opposed to more than $6 billion recorded during 2014’s third quarter.
As far as China is concerned, the sour economic data continued to flow on Wednesday. Industrial production growth during October came in at 5.6%, down from the 5.7% reported only a month earlier. This is yet one more sign that the world’s second-largest economy is continuing to slow down as we approach year’s end. For gold and silver, the economic slowdown on the part of China is something that does not help matters at all. When it comes down to it, in fact, China’s economy slowing down is actually very bad news for the longer-term prospects of gold and silver.
Wrap-Up
As we look ahead to the last few days of the week, gold and silver have a lot of room for improvement. Unfortunately, it is hard to envision any scenario where precious metals make up the losses incurred through the first few days of this week and the end of last week. Of course, the eyes of the world will remain on any and all economic data and activity happening around the US, but with it being widely believed that interest rates are going to be on the rise, I am not so sure the opinion of investors will be so easily swayed.
