Gold Spot Price Open: $1,293
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,294
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.90
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.65
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.25
Gold and silver, after finishing last week in somewhat impressive fashion, have opened up this new week of trading struggling to hang on to the momentum established during the last 5-day trading session. When all was said and done on Monday, gold managed to gain about 1 dollar while silver fell by more than 20 cents. Platinum and palladium both also gained on the day, but neither metal posted gains of much more than 5 dollars.
More Downbeat US Economic Data Dealt
One of the big stories of the day was tied to a report showing that the US manufacturing sector is facing some difficult times. Though it has been no secret that the US economy is beginning to experience some troubled times, the fact of the matter is that these poor reports are continuing to pile on top of each other. According to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), manufacturing PMI was positioned just above a reading that would suggest the sector is experiencing contraction.
For April, US manufacturing PMI posted a reading of 50.8%, down from March’s reading of 51.5%. For those who may not be aware, any reading below 50% suggests that the sector of the economy in question is experiencing contraction. In addition to today’s reading being too close to the 50% mark for comfort, today’s reading also missed the mark as far as expectations are concerned by quite a bit. Most people were anticipating that today’s reading would hit above 51.8%, but that clearly was not the case.
With April’s payrolls data due out later this week, it will be interesting to see what kind of moves investors make between now and when that piece of data is actually dealt. As it stands, the tone of economic data thus far has very few people thinking that non-farms payrolls data will be anything to write home about.
Stocks Inching Higher on First Day of the Week
Stocks in the US moved higher even in the face of some economic data that came back weaker than expected. For those who may be unaware, the latter parts of last week saw stocks suffer at the hand of poorer earnings reports.
While higher stocks made it difficult for gold and silver to make any real gains, crude oil was moving downward today after Middle Eastern countries posted higher oil outputs last week than was originally estimated. In fact, OPEC nations produced more than 32 million barrels of crude oil in April, which was far more than expected. Topping off the bad news for crude oil was a report which showed that Russia (a non-OPEC nation) exported 7% more crude oil than what was originally forecast.
Finally, investors are continuing to react to the Bank of Japan’s decision to maintain monetary policy at current levels for the time being. In fact, Japanese stock indexes slid by a good bit to start off the week. The reason for reactions to a decision made on Thursday coming the following Monday is due to the fact that Japanese markets were closed for a holiday Friday; the day after the decision was made.
Wrap-Up
Gold and silver performed well to open up the week, but the fact of the matter is that today was a mostly uneventful day across the global marketplace. Looking ahead to the rest of the week, we will be keeping our eyes and ears open for any and all additional pieces of economic data. Up first will be the ADP payrolls data that is due out on Wednesday. Though this data is not necessarily an indication of how the non-farms payrolls data will be towards the end of the week, it is important to investors nonetheless.
