Gold Spot Price Open: $1,230
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,226
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.19
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.12
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.07
Much to the dismay of investors, precious metals spent most of the day on Thursday suffering from a corrective pullback of sorts. When all was said and done, gold lost about four dollars while silver’s losses were closer to 10 cents. Platinum and palladium didn’t fare to well today either as both metals posted mild losses.
Chart Consolidation and Profit-Taking Push Metals Downward
When markets opened on Wednesday, the prevailing belief held by investors and market watchers was that a corrective pullback would bring spot values down from their lofty positions after Tuesday’s gains. By day’s end yesterday, however, spot values remained mostly unchanged, but today, the losses began to mount shortly after markets opened. Still, despite today’s losses, both gold and silver are still poised to make weekly gains.
Crude oil is on the up and up today, after spending most of the week hovering near 4 and 5-year lows. Though it seems unlikely, perhaps oil will make a bounce upward to finish out the week. Regardless of what direction crude oil heads in to close out the week, you can bet that investors will be paying close attention to any and all price action.
Russia Raises Interest Rates
You know this week is quiet when we are concerning ourselves with decisions made by Russia’s central bank. Nonetheless, it was announced early this morning that the central bank of Russia decided to raise interest rates by 1%. This move is none too surprising, and is an outright attempt to help boost the flailing ruble.
The ruble, which has now lost 40% of its value against the USD, is currently sitting at record lows. The ruble’s decline is a direct result of Western-imposed sanction on Russia in response to their alleged involvement in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Making matters potentially worse for Russia is the fact that Western nations are threatening to impose even tighter sanctions on the Russian economy should their involvement, or alleged involvement, in Ukraine not cease in the immediate future.
Stocks Bounce Back Impressively
The first half of this week brought nothing but losses for equity markets both in the United States and elsewhere around the world. A few factors, including fears regarding a global economic slowdown and poor economic data from China, have taken their toll on the investor outlook on a stock market investment. Today, however, stocks bounced back impressively in the United States as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all made nice strides forward.
Helping stocks make gains were both an upbeat retail sales report as well as a weekly jobless claims report that showed fewer than expected people looking for employment in the United States. Officially, retail sales in the US were reported as jumping upward by about .7%. Jobless claims, on the other hand, fell by 4,000 to a modest 294,000. Something to note is the fact that jobless claims have been under 300,000 for the 12th time out of the last 13 weeks.
Heading into the final day of the week, it will be interesting to see if stocks can retain today’s gains. Volatility in global equity markets has recently unnerved investors and has helped fuel safe-haven demand for gold and silver. If stocks bounce back for any extended period of time, this could potentially spell doom for gold and silver.
Wrap-Up
Tomorrow will inevitably be the most important day of this week, simply because investors will be eager to see whether gold and silver will continue to fall, or if they will be able to retain this week’s gains. There isn’t all that much economic data on the slate for tomorrow, but investors will have plenty of asset-classes to keep an eye on, including metals, oil, and equities.
