Gold Spot Price Open: $1,253
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,251
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$2
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.55
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.36
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.19
Monday offered a rather lackluster beginning of the week thanks to an absence of any real, markets-moving economic data. When all was said and done, gold did not end the day too far from where it began it while silver lost close to 20. Platinum and palladium lost value on the day as both metals lost closer to 10 dollars.
Rate Hike Talk Continues
Even though the market has mostly digested last week’s minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting, investors cannot help but continue talking about what the future might hold for US monetary policy. According to most experts, the tone of recent economic data from the US, though not stellar, has been improving consistently. Now you will be hard-pressed to find a single investor who is not convinced that another rate hike might be coming in the very near future.
Commenting on the situation on Monday was St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard, who said, “Labor markets are relatively tight. This may put upward pressure on inflation going forward. This is an important factor supporting the FOMC view on the expected path of the policy rate.”
In addition to most people expecting a rate hike in June, there are other members of the Fed who think that 2017 will see progressive rate hikes happen early and often. Of course, with that being said, many people thought that, by this time in 2016, we would have seen a few more rate hikes other than the one that happened nearly half a year ago. For gold and silver, the continued focus on the potential hiking of interest rates is not helping spot values whatsoever. Fortunately, metals did not fall too far on Monday, but the fact of the matter is that the near-term future is not looking all that promising for metals.
Lack of Bullish News Hurts Metals
To be fair, gold and silver are not moving too far forward today because there are not many pieces of bullish news to help give metals support. Over the weekend there were a few major meetings that are catching the attention of investors and market experts alike.
The meeting involved many major financial powers from around the world, and the most notable happening is that none of the US officials involved reprimanded Japan for their intentions of devaluing the Yen. For months now, the US and other countries around the world have been calling on Japan to stop manipulating its currency. Japan has not really responded to this criticism and it seems as though the Yen is destined to move even further downward.
In other news on Monday, the USD Index was trading about even while the spot value of crude oil ended up moving further downward. As is typically the case, anytime crude oil moves downward it is always going to be difficult for gold and silver to make gains. As such, today brought about a rather poor start to this week for metals.
Wrap-Up
All in all, Monday was a slow day and did not present much in the way of fresh economic data. With that being said, we did receive some more commentary regarding interest rate hikes, but the fact of the matter is that rate hikes are going to remain the main topic of discussion for the foreseeable future. For gold and silver, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the week pans out as well as what the next few days have in store as far as economic data is concerned.
