Gold Spot Price Open: $1,176
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,170
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$6
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.75
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.63
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.12
Precious metals continued edging downward on Wednesday despite a day full of some decent headlines. When all was said and done, gold lost another 6 dollars while silver declined by more than ten cents. Platinum and palladium, on the other hand, were both on the up and up all day, with palladium having added more than 20 dollars to its spot value.
Greece Defaults on Obligations, No One Surprised
Now that the month of June has finally run its course, we have finally been given the news that we have all been expecting–Greece has defaulted on loan repayments totaling multi-billions of dollars. Unable to pay back creditors, Greece is now holding a referendum over the weekend to determine if its citizenry would like to try and remain part of the EU, or if Athens should attempt to forge its own path. As of now, it is not widely known what side of the referendum will prevail, but even if Greeks want to remain a part of the EU, that much is in no way guaranteed.
As investors scramble to react to today’s news, it should be stated that it is important to not read too heavily into what today’s defaulting means for the long-term. While it is unnerving to many investors, most market experts do not think this Greek debacle will have any sort of lasting effects. Experts the world over maintain that while the current Greek situation is driving markets, this is something that will likely only persist through the short-term. In the long run, earnings and other solid data points will drive market activity, not geopolitics. We will continue to keep an eye on Greece as the referendum scheduled for this Sunday is poised to create the next big story from this whole situation.
Further Signs of US Economic Improvement
As a lot of the market’s attention shifts to tomorrow’s non-farms payroll report from June, the attention of the marketplace today was distracted by further upbeat economic readings from the United States. According to the data, private employers in the US hired at a rate in June not seen in any of the previous 6 months. This only serves to strengthen the belief that the labor market in the US is gaining strength and that the economy overall is gaining more traction.
A boatload of other data including upbeat readings on factory output and auto sales also had investors licking their chops. Now, the attention turns to tomorrow’s job figures from June which are expected to show nice additions in the non-farm payrolls department. Though it may be the middle of Summer, the US economy seems to be working well at the present moment in time with plenty of improvement seemingly still to come.
Wrap-Up
For all intents and purposes, tomorrow will be the final day of the week for many people in the United States. With the 4th of July holiday taking place this Saturday, those that have not already taken the week off from work will look to get an early start to their holiday weekend. For that reason, you can expect that a bulk of the reactions to tomorrow’s job figures will come when markets open back up on Monday. Barring an overly poor reading, it is likely that tomorrow’s non-farm payrolls report will not do precious metals any favors.
