Gold Spot Price Open: $1,287
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,279
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$8
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.83
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.80
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.03
Gold and silver traded lower for yet another day on Tuesday due, once again, to more technical selling and a lack of any bullish news. When all was said and done, gold lost around 8 dollars while silver’s losses were only a few pennies.
US investors were greeted with a healthy slate of US economic data on Tuesday, most of which was better than market expectations. This fresh batch of upbeat economic news further limited physical gold and silver buying interest and actually ended up putting more selling pressure on metals. Despite today’s economic data being heavily scrutinized by investors, this week’s most important US economic data will come in the form of Friday’s non-farm payrolls data from March. Should job growth in March be as positive as many are expecting, gold and silver will likely be delivered another spot value hit.
Some good news made public today came in the overnight hours in the form of China’s latest manufacturing PMI. After a few consecutive months of disappointing Chinese manufacturing data, investors were pleased to see a subtle change of pace. Officially, March’s PMI reading of 50.3 bested February’s reading by just one tenth of one percent. With all this being said, another report released later on in the day counteracted the positive manufacturing PMI that was made public earlier.
Finally, the EU’s manufacturing PMI fell over the course of February to March, but is still above the all-important 50 threshold. However, today’s report of a declining manufacturing PMI only serves to bolster worries with regard to deflation across Europe. Along with deflation worries comes speculation that the European Central Bank may employ some sort of new monetary stimulus measures in order to stave off rapid deflation. With the next ECB meeting scheduled for just two days from now, many will be watching closely to see if any significant changes come as a result.
