Gold Spot Price Open: $1,209
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,206
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$3
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.49
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.38
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.11
For a second consecutive day, both gold and silver are trading downward, though losses have been kept at a minimum. The day has been mostly quiet, so by the time things were all said and done, gold lost about 3 dollars while silver fell to the tune of more than 10 cents. Platinum and palladium traded sideways for a bulk of the day.
Market Looks Forward to US Employment Data
While this week is expected to be busy thanks to a number of different factors, nothing is being more highly anticipated than February’s US employment data, which is set to be made public later this week. If you can remember, January’s employment data was less than stellar, as was December’s. Still, despite these figures, people from the Fed like James Bullard and Janet Yellen continuously insist that the US economy is doing just fine. The reality, however, is that recent economic data is painting an entirely different picture of the US economy.
As it stands now, you can expect that market experts will be anticipating at least 300,000 non-farm payrolls to have been added to the economy during February. The 300,000 mark is a number that keeps popping its head up and is a great way to determine how upbeat or downbeat job growth was during a given month. As it stands, investors will likely be satisfied with any reading above 300,000.
For precious metals today, there really weren’t too many factors influencing the movement of spot values. Most outside market forces, such as the USD Index and the spot price of crude oil, stayed put through most of today. The only exception to that was a short time during the early afternoon where the USD Index took a bit of a tumble and allowed metals to recoup some of their early morning losses.
EU Retail Sales Report Mostly Impresses
During the early morning hours of Tuesday the latest German retail sales report was released and the figures were somewhat surprising. Year on year, retail sales in Germany were up by just short of 3% during the month of January. Seeing as Germany is the best-performing EU economy, these upbeat figures were especially welcomed by investors; seen in the positive performance of EU equities throughout most of the day today.
Unfortunately, as is often the case nowadays, the economic data made public out of the EU today was not all upbeat. The EU’s Producer Price Index (PPI) over the course of December to January fell by .9% and was down by more than 3% on the year. This only adds to the worries regarding deflation across most European economies.
Business Executive Have Better Expectations for US Economy
Despite the fact that the first two months of 2015, from an economic standpoint, have been far from upbeat for the United States, business leaders are still expecting great things from the world’s largest economy.
According to the Business Roundtable’s CEO economic outlook index, which gauges the corporate world’s leaders’ expectations regarding future sales, investment, and employment, the latest reading rose from just over 85 through the last few months of 2014 up to well over 90. The more upbeat outlook is stemming from a combination of consistently lower gas prices and perceived continuous improvement on the part of the US labor market. These two factors are giving the average American more spending power and is expected to do exactly that as 2015 moves forward.
Wrap-Up
Despite today being a slow, lackluster day, the rest of the week is shaping up to be the complete opposite. Expect more economic data to be released as the week moves forward, the most important of which will be the latest US employment report. We are also keeping our eye on the unrest in Russia as the Kremlin struggles to make sense of a situation that looks like nothing more than Putin directly taking out a political opponent. Very few developments have taken place since the weekend, but the situation is far from finished.
