Gold Spot Price Open: $1,320
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,333
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$13
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.58
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.73
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.15
After suffering through most of the first half of the week, precious metals have recovered nicely on Thursday. When all was said and done, gold gained about 13 dollars while silver improved to the tune of about 15 cents. Platinum and palladium also gained on the day, with platinum picking up more than 15 dollars while palladium gained little more than 10.
BoJ May Hold Off on Further Easing
In a move that was not necessarily expected, the Bank of Japan decided against adding to their ongoing stimulus program, it was announced today. According to comments made by a handful of BoJ officials, just because Japan has not yet hit its goal as far as inflation concerned does not mean that the central bank should immediately panic and increase stimulus.
Of course, these are nothing more than comments, so it will be interesting to see what takes place when it comes time to decide whether more stimulus is the right move or not.
In Europe, the ECB meeting that was held this week came and went without any changes to policy occurring. The general consensum amongst members of the ECB is that more time is needed to fully assess the current and future impacts the BRExit decision will have on the European economy. It is important to keep in mind that this was just the first ECB meeting since the UK decided to leave the EU.
For those anticipating changes to policy, I wouldn’t be so quick to get my hopes up. Most ECB experts foresee rates in the region remaining at present or lower levels for some time now. That is, of course, barring any significant happening that would warrant more immediate changes. Thus far, however, the UK’s exit from the EU has not been quite as catastrophic as some might have originally believed.
Stocks, USD Index Lower
Giving precious metals a nice boost today was the fact that both US equities as well as the US Dollar performed a bit more weakly than they had up to this point this week. The Dollar suffered as a result of the commentary from the BoJ, but really did not fare well today against many of its rivals.
US stocks, which have had a solid past 2 weeks, moved mostly lower on Thursday thanks to a flood of earnings reports, some of which can be best described as less than impressive. The Dow in particular will end the day in the red for the first time in 7 trading sessions.
Among the disappointing sales figures was Southwest Airlines, which not only missed its projected sales numbers, it also missed out as far as projected profits were concerned. In fact, most major US-based airlines performed poorly through the second quarter of the year and many people are beginning to wonder about the airline industry’s overall health.
There were plenty of other reports for investors to mull over and discuss, but the day was highlighted by many of those reports plainly missing the mark. This prompted some bargain-hunting for gold and silver and was a likely reason for today’s gains.
Wrap-Up
Today was arguably the busiest day across the global marketplace we have seen this week, and was also the first day this week that precious metals made decent strides forward. As we look forward to the final day of the trading week, investors will gear up for more earnings reports and some small pieces of economic data from the US. It will be interesting to see if gold and silver can regain more ground to close out this week, or if they will be ending the week having posted losses.
