Gold Spot Price Open: $1,165
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,191
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$26
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.73
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.39
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.66
Gold and silver spot values gained a lot of value on Friday to end a slow week on a mostly upbeat note. When all was said and done, gold gained more than 25 dollars while silver was up by more than 65 cents. Platinum and palladium finished the day up, but platinum’s gains far exceeded those of palladium’s.
Stocks Mixed after Upbeat US Economic Data
Though this week did not bring about much in the way of economic data, the last two days have been somewhat of an exception. Yesterday played host to the release of the latest weekly jobless claims reports in the US, and unexpectedly, those figures had grown quite significantly. Today, however, investors were dealt a good bit of other data, most of which was from the United States.
According to reports released earlier this morning, retail sales in the United States jumped in October after declining in September. Because of the upward movement of retail sales last month, market analysts are led to believe that perhaps holiday-season spending will be more robust this year than it has been the past few. This news caused US equities to move between small gains and small losses for much of the day. Despite this, gold and silver spot values managed to add a good bit of value today.
USD Makes Gains on the Back of Retail Sales Report
Though the USD Index, which measures the greenback against a number of rival currencies, finished the day trending ever so slightly downward, the greenback did well against a few currencies individually on the back of the more upbeat retail sales report.
Against the Yen, the Dollar reached its highest point in more than 7 years and is only seeming to grow stronger with each passing week. As the Bank of Japan continues to pursue measures aimed at growing the economy and weakening the Yen, the Dollar will likely only continue to make gains against the Japanese currency.
Will Metals Retain Gains?
At this point last week, precious metals were making gains much like they have been for almost the whole day today. Unfortunately, come this Monday, the gains made on Friday were almost entirely pared. As we head into this weekend, investors will be wondering if metals will be able to hang on to the massive gains made today, or if this Monday will bring about more losses.
As it stands, the bearish market that we are currently apart of makes many people believe that today’s gains will be only temporary in nature. Of course, there is no way to say that for certain, so we will just have to see what kind of data and information has to bring.
At present, physical demand for gold and silver is strong and getting stronger, but it is going to take much more than physical demand alone for metals to hang on to gains like those made today. Realistically, it is going to take a lot for gold and silver to make more gains and hang on to them, but anything is possible.
Wrap-Up
It is no secret that this week has been one of the quieter weeks in recent history. Apart from today and Thursday, there were almost no major pieces of economic data made public. While that might change, to some extent, next week, it is going to take some extremely upbeat or extremely downbeat reports for it to change the bearish nature of the current market. Still, even without economic data, investors will have the equity and currency markets to pay attention to.
