Gold Spot Price Open: $1,239
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,241
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$2
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.01
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.00
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.01
Precious metals opened the week up on a positive note thanks to a weaker Dollar, which offered some upside support. When all was said and done, gold added about two dollars while silver moved down just barely. Platinum and palladium gained on the day, but neither metal was able to add much more than 5 dollars.
US Housing Data Dealt Amid Plethora of Earnings Reports
For equities in the US and around the world, this week will be an important one as more and more corporate earnings reports are dealt. Among the big names expected to deal first-quarter data are Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and AT&T. Before investors focused on the upcoming earnings data, however, there was a light batch of US economic data dealt on Monday.
According to the US Commerce Department, home sales took a bit of a hit in March and came back weaker than anticipated. According to the data, sales of new, single-family homes fell by more than 1.5% last month, bringing the seasonally-adjusted annualized number of home sales to 511,000. This number is nearly 10,000 units smaller than what was recorded during February (519,000) and points towards a housing market that seems to be losing momentum. Prior to today’s data, most people were expecting the seasonally-adjusted average to eclipse the 520,000 mark.
Crude Oil Falls on New Saudi Plan
Crude oil took another hit on Monday after Saudi Arabia announced plans to provide a facelift to their current oil-reliant economy. In light of crude oil prices that have tumbled considerably over the last year or more, Saudi King Salman unveiled the plan before US markets opened. It is officially titled ‘Vision 2030’ and elaborates on how the country is going to create more jobs via foreign investment in industries other than oil production and exporting.
For crude oil, the fact that one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world announced plans to gradually disassociate itself from a commodity that accounts for 80% of the country’s GDP is something that only sours the outlook on crude oil long-term.
FOMC Meeting Called Into Focus
Of all the week’s events, few are more attention-grabbing than the upcoming FOMC meeting, scheduled to take place from Wednesday to Thursday, culminating with a post-meeting press conference where Fed Chair Janet Yellen is expected to address the media’s inquiries. At this juncture, there is almost no one expecting that the Fed will raise or otherwise alter interest rates at this month’s meeting. While this is the case, the fact of the matter is that investors will be paying close attention to what the Fed has to say in order to hopefully gain a better idea as to when rates might be raised next as well as how much they will be raised by.
As you have seen over the past few weeks, economic data from the US has been anything but overly upbeat, and this lends itself to the belief that rates will be held steady until sometime during the Summer, if not even longer than that. Today’s housing data does well to show that even the strongest aspects of the US economy are facing some turbulent times. This is all on top of global economic conditions, which have been anything but upbeat through most of this year so far. Regardless of whether a rate decision is made this week or not, it will be interesting—as it always is—to see what kind of attitude members of the FOMC have towards the state of the US economy at present.
Wrap-Up
Monday was not the most eventful day we have been a part of in recent history, but the small batch of economic data will do well to have investors ready for what the rest of the week will bring. First and foremost, corporate earnings reports will be called into focus, and then the week will wrap up with the all-important FOMC meeting for this month. There are few scenarios that do not see this being one of the more exciting weeks of the month.
