Gold Spot Price Open: $1,235
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,219
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$16
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.98
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.87
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.11
After hovering near even all day long, precious metals declined noticeable during the afternoon to finish the day near multi-week lows. When all was said and done, gold lost more than 15 dollars while silver declined by more than ten cents. By day’s end, platinum and palladium had posted daily losses as well.
Oil Sees Follow-Through Selling
After suffering some pretty hefty losses on Tuesday, crude oil continue to perform poorly, bringing energy stocks down with it. In fact, US and European stocks on the whole did not have a very upbeat Wednesday. Despite many people believing that oil’s troubles were through, we are currently seeing that the crude oil market is anything but stable at present. This only seems to be benefiting the US Dollar because the greenback has been on a nice run all week long.
It will be interesting to see if oil continue to fall as we head into the latter half of the week. If it does, we may see a spike in safe-haven demand for gold and silver much like we did over the course of oil’s extended downturn.
Greek Talks Held In Brussels
Thanks to the new Greek government’s refusal to abide by pre-approved debt reduction and austerity measures, the EU and members of the Greek government are currently holding talks in Brussels, Belgium. Greece’s abandonment of austerity and debt reduction measures more or less seal their fate with the EU. According to many analysts, Greece has the option of either accepting the agreement that was reached in 2012, or leave the European Union.
At this point in time, many people feel as though Greece is fully prepared to leave the EU. This small but growing belief is currently having a negative impact on stocks across Europe as well as the Euro currency. In general, investors are wary of the European region simply because of all the risk and uncertainty that is associated with it. For gold and silver, this is definitely something that benefits them in the long run. For now, however, we are seeing the USD Index be the real beneficiary of all the European uncertainty.
Wrap-Up
As you can clearly see, this week is quite slow and does not look like it will be picking up speed anytime soon. As we head into the last few days of the trading week, I imagine that investors will continue analyzing what EU leaders have to say about Greece and their obstinate attitude towards previously agreed upon measures. In addition to this, investors will also be interested to see what the US weekly jobless claims report from last week has to say. As it stands, the market is expecting that jobless claims are going to continue falling as we head further into the year.
