Gold Spot Price Open: $1,198
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,206
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$8
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.31
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.37
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.06
Precious metals ended the week on a positive note thanks to some uncertainty bred from ongoing Greek debt repayment talks. When all was said and done, gold gained about 8 dollars while silver’s gains just barely eclipsed the 5 cent mark. Platinum and palladium once again finished the day mixed, but did not end up moving too far from where they began the day.
Greek Debt Talks Continue
If you can remember back to a month or so ago, Greece and its debtors reached a temporary agreement regarding their debt repayments. At the time, it was made clear that while it was nice to see a deal reached, the nature of the deal struck earlier this year was such that it was nothing more than a temporary fix as opposed to a real, viable solution. As such, debt talks once again took place this week and did not go well at all. Partaking in the talks was Greek officials, officials from the EU, and the International Monetary Fund.
According to reports published during the early morning hours today, Greece asked the IMF if it could postpone its next debt payment, to which the IMF immediately replied with a resounding, “no.” Though the talks have since recessed, they will be picked back up this weekend. For now, however, people close to the situation have commented that nothing is getting done and that Greek and its debtors are not seeing eye-to-eye in the slightest. By the time markets open next week, I am sure we will have a bit more to talk about regarding Greece and their debt repayments.
USD Index and EU Bonds Continue to Fall
For yet another day this week, the USD Index was trending downward and not really doing precious metals any favors. This has been a theme all week long and is part of the reason so many investors and market experts are convinced that the US Dollar has put in a near-term market top. In Europe, safe-haven German bond yields are continuing to fall on worries that Greece may soon be exiting the European Union. In addition, stock indexes across Europe were down today on similar worries pertaining to Greece.
For gold and silver, all of the worries stemming from Greece’s debt repayments are helping keep safe-haven demand afloat. Because of all this focus on interest rate hikes in the United States, precious metals have suffered a bit simply because higher interest rates mean that investor interest in safe-haven metals will be diminished. Thankfully, all of the uncertainty being created by these slow, fragmented debt talks is helping augment some of the selling pressure created by the prospect of raised interest rates.
Consumer Price Pressures Continue to Rise
A report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that price pressures continued to rise, for a second consecutive month, during March. Officially, the US CPI rose by .2% last month. This piece of data did not have too much of an impact on the market, but was a good piece of information for investors to consider going forward as inflation is under constant observation by investors both here and abroad.
Wrap-Up
All in all, this was a pretty interesting week for a number of different reasons. We received some good information regarding interest rates in the US, specifically from James Bullard of the St. Louis Federal Reserve when he insinuated that interest rates should be hiked sooner rather than later. This small bit of information hurt precious metals considerably and will likely continue to weigh on them through the foreseeable future.
