Gold Spot Price Open: $1,251
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,252
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.66
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.51
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.15
Precious metals continued to inch forward on Thursday thanks to many of the same factors that have been helping metals up to this point. When all was said and done, gold ended up adding a single dollar while silver lost about 15 cents. Platinum was down on the day, by about 7 dollars, while palladium actually added roughly 6 dollars.
Gold Hits 3-Week High
Precious metals have been on the up and up for the last week or so, thanks, in large part, to the Fed’s less hawkish tone in the wake of their meeting last week. Since then, the spot value of gold has risen at a steady rate and hit a fresh 3-week high on Wednesday. Continuing to help gold’s spot value is the fact that the US Dollar has been growing weaker and weaker, and also due to US stock’s shakiness through the first half of the week. With safe-haven demand on the rise, the Dollar on the decline, and stocks presenting a lot of uncertainty, it should come as no surprise that precious metals—specifically gold—have been performing well of late.
While conventional wisdom would lead you to believe that a supposed terrorist attack in London is behind the spike in safe-haven demand, such is not really the case. Whether we are talking about today’s terror attack, or any other that has taken place in recent history, the fact of the matter is that these types of events are now considered an unfortunate part of everyday life. As such, attacks like the one we saw in London do not have any major impact on the global marketplace.
Focus Turns to Fate of Obamacare
This week presented a lack of fresh inputs with regard to economic data, especially data from the US. With that being said, there is a big vote taking place in the US House of Representatives tomorrow. As it stands, the House will be voting tomorrow on whether or not to abolish the Affordable Care Act, also commonly referred to as Obamacare.
Right now, the one roadblock that might prevent this from happening is a potential lack of support from the Republican side of the aisle. President Donald Trump has long promised that he will do away with the ACA, but without tomorrow’s vote going in his favor, that will be a major challenge. Though President Trump and his colleagues have introduced a replacement bill, it has so far been met with a lot of criticism from both sides of the aisle. If tomorrow’s vote does not go the way of Trump, this will be seen as a major, early setback.
What’s more, if the abolishing vote does not gain enough support, this may push stock markets even lower. The abolishing and replacement of the ACA, among many other anti-regulatory moves, have long been a hallmark of Trump’s campaign, and has lent support to stock markets. If tomorrow’s vote goes the way of Democrats, all of that stock market confidence may disappear just as quickly as it came about.
Wrap-Up
There is no denying that this week has been fairly lackluster from an economic standpoint. There have been very few reports released, and those that have been made public have been mostly overshadowed by continued discussion with regard to interest rates. For precious metals, this much has come with plenty of benefits, but there is no saying just how far gold and silver might move forward. If they can close out the week continuing to hold on to their current strength, we may see spot values move even higher during the last week of March trading.
