Gold Spot Price Open: $1,212
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,204
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$8
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.90
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.58
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.32
For a second consecutive day, precious metals conceded decent value as last’week’s gains begin to slowly but surely fade away. When all was said and done, gold lost close to ten dollars while silver was down by more than thirty cents. Platinum and palladium also posted minor losses on a day that was all-around poor for metals.
FOMC Minutes Cause a Bit of Stir
Nowadays, it seems as though we cannot go a single day without discussing the timing and extent of interest rate hikes in the United States. Despite last week’s poor jobs data having many convinced that rate hikes will not be occurring anytime soon, today’s release of the minutes from the FOMC’s meeting last month may have caused investors to rethink their recently solidified beliefs.
According to the minutes, it was clear to see that members of the Fed are quite rigidly divided with regard to when they think interest rate hikes should take place. Though the minutes did not have an immediate affect on the marketplace, once they were fully digested it was clear to see that they were more bearish than anything else for metals. After slumping to start the day, the USD Index bucked upward and finished the day in the green by a quarter of a percentage point. This now marks two consecutive days during which the Dollar made impressive moves forward against rivals.
Now, as we reflect on two days of losses for metals, one is left to wonder if gold and silver will be able to bounce back. Silver has lost more than 60 cents/ounce over the past two days and is slowly but surely giving up the nice gains it made a week ago.
Crude Oil Ticks Noticeably Downward
Despite being on a nice recovery path over the last few weeks, crude oil prices were sharply down during the day today. The impetus for this correction downward came on the heels of a report claiming that the US supply of crude oil is even larger than previously thought. At present, crude oil prices are suffering due to there being an absolutely massive quantity of the commodity in the reserves of many countries.
Add the prospect of Iranian crude oil hitting the market before the end of this year, and you have yourself a crude oil market that is seemingly teetering on the edge of another massive shift downward. For now, however, today’s poor performance is nothing more than a slight hiccup interrupting an otherwise nice move upward. As the week plays out, we will continue to keep a close eye on crude oil prices in order to see just how readily they are helping to shift the spot values of precious metals.
Wrap-Up
All things considered, today was a fairly quiet day across the global marketplace. US stock indexes finished upward but have not been performing all that great in recent weeks. Poor economic data from the US is not helping matters at all, but it will be interesting to see if equities can build off today’s small gains as we head deeper into the week.
