Gold Spot Price Open: $1,189
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,193
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.95
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.03
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.08
Metals were able to continue their bullish run on Tuesday thanks to a US Dollar that is continuing to weaken. When all was said and done, gold managed to add close to five dollars while silver gained closer to ten cents. Platinum and palladium, on the other hand, both lost on the day; between 5 and ten dollars apiece.
European Plane Crash Eyed By Market
Earlier this morning, a German passenger plane reportedly went down in the French Alps, killing all 148 on board. The plane was owned by the German Airline Lufthansa but was operated by affiliate Airline Germanwings, a budget airline that serves most of continental Europe. As it stands, the cause of the crash is not known, and very few potential causes have been ruled out. Thanks to this, the market is paying close attention simply because terrorism is still a possible cause of this crash. You can expect that the market will continue keeping a close eye on this situation for no other reason than there is not really much else for investors to focus on.
Chinese Manufacturing Data Mostly Disappoints
During the overnight hours of Monday into Tuesday, China released its most recent HSBC Manufacturing PMI from the month of March. Despite a February reading of 50.7, March’s reading came back at just above 49. These figures are so important simply because any reading below 50 suggests that the economy, and even the specific sector of the economy, is experiencing negative growth. What’s more, the 49.2 reading was an 11-month low for China, a country that has been actively trying to recover from recently poor economic growth.
During the early morning hours of Tuesday, Europe’s most recent PMI was made public and showed a reading of 54.1 for March. The 54.1 reading was a bit improved from February’s 53.3 reading. Overall, however, the economic outlook for the European Union is less than savory and is not looking like improving anytime soon.
USD Index Finishes Marginally Higher
Despite initially falling, and falling hard, the USD Index was able to recover and finish the day posting small gains. The fact that the greenback was able to recover during the afternoon stripped away some of gold and silver’s larger gains made earlier in the day. Aiding gold, however, was the fact that crude oil prices were a bit firmer today, after spending the better part of the last few days stagnating. Recent developments across currency markets (the USD Index in particular) have caused precious metals bulls to believe that commodities have set new, near-term lows and are going to continue moving higher throughout the duration of this week.
Of course, it is impossible to know for certain what the next few days have in store, but with this plane crash in Europe and the generally quiet market atmosphere that has persisted through the first two days of this week, I would not be at all surprised to see metals continue to head higher, even if only by small margins.
Wrap-Up
Like Monday, Tuesday was a fairly quiet day from an economic data standpoint. Some PMI reports were thrown our way, but as is typically the case, these data points do not have all that much of an affect on the marketplace unless they are overly poor or overly good. Looking ahead to the middle day of the week tomorrow, it is widely expected that the market’s top focus will be on the unfolding investigation with regard to the Germanwings plane crash. With terrorism still a possible cause, investors are very much concerned and will continue to be.
