Gold Spot Price Open: $1,225
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,229
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.59
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.79
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.20
Precious metals continued along last week’s uptrend to start the new week on fresh fears regarding Greece’s ability to pay back debts to the EU and IMF. When all was said and done, gold gained about four dollars while silver was up by about twenty. Platinum moved up by more than ten dollars on the day while palladium traded mostly sideways.
Fresh Fears Regarding Greek Debt
For the last few weeks, a recurring theme across the global marketplace has been ongoing talks happening between Greek government officials and officials representing the EU and IMF. Basically, what this all boils down to is that Greece has many upcoming debt repayments to be made, but does not necessarily have the cash to fund them. Just last week it was reported that Greece was to make a debt repayment, though no one was quite sure that such a payment would come to fruition. Now, it has come to light that last week’s payment was made using funds from an emergency account that is now running low on funds itself.
Going forward, it is widely believed that Greece will not be able to honor loan repayments should the repayment structure not change. Fears stemming from Greece’s struggle to pay back debts have helped push gold and silver forward recently, and will likely continue to do the same. After all, even a single missed payment to the IMF or EU could result in Greece’s forced removal from the European Union.
Metals Gain Thanks to US Economic Growth Uncertainty
This being the fifth consecutive trading session during which gold finished in a better spot than where it started may not seem like a big deal, but it is the first time we have seen such an event since March. Gold and silver’s recent successes, though limited, are being largely attributed to concerns of whether the US economy really is going to grow like it was expected to.
About 5 and a half months into 2015 is where we are at right now, and the plain truth is that most US economic data has disappointed. Recent jobs figures are on the up and up, but data relating to retail sales, home sales, producer/consumer prices are all falling into the disappointing category. With the FOMC’s minutes from their latest meeting scheduled to be released this Wednesday, it will be interesting to see if any change of tone can be detected from members of the Fed who were previously gung-ho with regard to the idea of rhiking interest rates.
For me, it is unlikely that interest rate hikes will occur at any point this year barring an immediate and dramatic change in the nature of US economic data. The US Dollar did make a decent corrective bounce on Monday, so this likely helped prevent gold and silver from moving too much further forward today.
Wrap-Up
Truthfully, there really isn’t much in the way of economic data to look forward to this week. The FOMC minutes will undoubtedly catch the attention of the marketplace, but I have my doubts with regard to whether they will unearth any groundbreaking Fed viewpoints on interest rate hikes. In other news, China received yet another dismal batch of economic data over the weekend, highlighted by home sales that have been consistently on the decline.
