Gold Spot Price Open: $1,251
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,236
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$15
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.09
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.89
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.20
Gold and silver finished Friday posting mixed results, but both metals concluded the week having made gains over the course of Monday to Friday. When all was said and done, gold lost about 14 dollars while silver lost roughly twenty cents. Platinum and palladium made gains to close out the week, though neither metal moved up by too much more than five dollars.
Chart Consolidation, Firmer Greenback Limits Metals
Friday was just like Thursday in that it was incredibly difficult for precious metals to make gains due to outside markets. In addition to chart consolidation taking its toll after recent, midweek gains, the USD Index was even firmer on Friday and this almost always limits precious metals’ upside.
Stock markets in Europe and Asia were mostly quieter overnight, and neither region saw equities make anything in the way of noteworthy gains.
According to reports, the BoJ, like Europe, may see its quantitative easing expanded in the very near future. The Bank of Japan is scheduled to sit down for their monthly policy meeting next week, and as it stands most people are expecting the QE program to be expanded. This is not very surprising because Japan, like Europe, has not seen the type of economic recovery they originally expected when QE was first instituted. To be fair, however, Japan has performed better in recent months than they had at most points during 2015.
With very few pieces of US economic data being dealt this week, the Dollar is likely to head into the weekend and begin next week exhibiting the same strength that we saw today. Though this does not necessarily bode well for gold and silver, outside markets are doing their part to keep spot values somewhat elevated.
Corporate Earnings Make a Splash
We tend to avoid talking about corporate earnings reports as they can often be very misleading, but this week a few US giants released their earnings data from the first quarter of this year. McDonald’s, for example, saw its stock make massive gains on Thursday after it reported much better than expected earnings through the first three months of the year. All-day breakfast sales were heralded as the major key behind McDonald’s successful January-March timeframe.
As unsurprising as this may be, GE reported some weaker earnings through the first parts of this year. The reason this is so unsurprising is the fact that GE, like many other energy companies (though, to be fair, GE isn’t strictly an energy company) has been suffering through this crude oil price drop that will not correct itself.
Wrap-Up
Friday was not the most exciting day of the week, but it was encouraging to see gold and silver able to weather a stronger Dollar and some firmer equities in the US. So long as economic conditions remain as unpredictable as they have been, and crude oil prices continue to lag, gold and silver look likely to stay in the range that they have been trading in for the past few weeks. Though we may see short-term, temporary fluctuations in price, spot values seem to be remaining put for the most part.
Next week brings about the last week of April trading, and that means that we will be dealt some pretty serious and markets-moving data by this time next week. It will be interesting to see if gold and silver can sustain these somewhat decent spot values through next week. If that does happen, it will be a very big psychological boost for investors.
