Gold Spot Price Open: $1,192
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,204
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$12
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.29
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.41
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.12
Gold and silver both managed to add some value on Monday despite outside markets continuing to be quite bearish. When all was said and done, gold gained more than 12 dollars while silver was up by more than ten cents. Platinum ended the day Monday up by about ten dollars, but palladium managed to lose a few dollars.
USD Soars While Crude Oils Continues to Lag
As has been the case for the last few weeks, the USD performed well on Monday while the spot value of crude oil continued to fare poorly. In early trading on Monday, the greenback hit a 7-year high against the Japanese Yen and a two-year high against the Euro before backing down later in the day. The US Dollar’s positive performance is said to be directly linked with Friday’s far better than expected employment report for November.
Unlike the Dollar, crude oil began the day and week right around a 5-year low. Some of today’s losses were parred by the time markets in the US closed, but it is clear to see that crude oil is feeling the strains of the currently bearish marketplace. For precious metals investors, it was very interesting to see gold and silver make gains in the face of such harsh outside market conditions. Whether these gains can be sustained as we venture further into the week, however, remains to be seen.
Poor Chinese Economic Data Surfaces
Well before US markets opened today, global investors had to contend with a shockingly poor piece of economic data from China. Officially, China saw an increase of exports in the neighborhood of 4.7%, which was far less than the expected 8% increase. Adding to this was the fact that China’s November imports fell by about 6.7% when the market was expecting a rise of almost 4%.
As is the case anytime we are dealt poor Chinese news from China, this batch of data ended up acting as yet another factor dragging down raw commodities, including gold and silver. China, like much of Europe, has been seen falling behind as far as economic growth is concerned and this has not done the spot values of gold and silver any favors. China is regularly the world’s largest importer of precious metals, so to see that imports are down is none too encouraging.
US Stocks Down Across the Board
The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all finished the day in the red on the back of today’s poor Chinese economic data. With worries regarding global economic growth on the front-burner for many investors, stocks are more likely to fluctuate as a result of poor data from major economic players such as Japan and China.
Despite today’s hiccups, however, US stocks have been doing extremely well in recent months and have been a major factor in preventing gold and silver from striding too far forward.
Wrap-Up
Metals made gains today, but the day was generally quiet. From the looks of it, this entire week is going to be a bit quiet as a bulk of the important economic data was made public during last week. Still, there will be plenty of action on the part of currency, equity, and oil markets for investors the world over to pay attention to and assess.
