Gold Spot Price Open: $1,109
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,096
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$13
Silver Spot Price Open: $14.94
Silver Spot Price Close: $14.87
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.07
Precious metals continued their slide on Wednesday during a trading session where little was changed from the day before. When all was said and done, gold lost close to twenty dollars while silver’s losses closed in on 20 cents. After gaining on Tuesday, both platinum and palladium resumed their slide as soon as markets opened on Wednesday.
Iran Nuclear Deal May Prove Bullish for Gold, Silver
After an historic nuclear deal between Iran and 6 other nations was etched and agreed to last week, the world now looks on to see if the necessary follow-up approvals will go on as planned. Should everything follow the laid out path, Iran will have many Western-imposed sanctions lifted prior to the end of the year. This may not seem like the biggest deal in the world, but with Iran’s current economic state, purchases of precious metals have all but fallen off in recent years.
Commenting on the situation was the website Metals Focus, which said, in part, “First, as the local economy took a hit on declining trade and business activity, consumers’ discretionary spending on gold items has been significantly reduced. Second, the depreciation of the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar in recent years had seen many consumers being priced out.” Basically, crippling sanctions imposed by the West in response to Iran’s supposed search for a nuclear weapon have acted as a barrier between Iranian citizens and precious metals. Though Iran increasing their consumption of metals may not be what gold and silver spot values need to end their recent slide, it is definitely not going to hurt the chances of this slide being halted.
More Upbeat Economic Data from the US
A theme that has been slowly but surely developing is that of upbeat economic data from the United States. With retail sales reports, GDP data, and just about every other piece of data from the US coming back positive, increasing amounts of pressure are being stacked up against gold and silver. Not making matters any better for metals is the fact that the US Federal Reserve is now expected to make their first interest rate hike by this September. Though this exact month has yet to be officially confirmed, most market experts and investors have grown convinced that September is the time when these inevitable rate hikes will finally kick in.
Today, the good news kept on coming for the US as it was reported that sales of existing homes rose by more than 3 percent during the month of June. This rate of growth is the most robust we have seen in nearly a decade and only works to underscore the actual strength of the US housing market. Seeing that existing home sales were reported as unexpectedly falling during the month of May, these figures from June do well to put to rest any lingering concerns investors might have with regard to the strength of the housing sector of the US economy. As has been the case recently, news stories and pieces of data like this one are only going to work against spot values and push them even lower.
Wrap-Up
All in all, Wednesday was another relatively quiet day across the global marketplace. Apart from the lone piece of US economic data, there wasn’t much going on capable of moving markets considerably in any single direction. Still, as investor risk-appetite continues to tick upwards, spot values are continuing to diminish. Now, the investing world can do little more than look on and see just how far metals’ slide will go. Tomorrow’s weekly unemployment report, which is expected to be upbeat, comes back positive, metals may see a repeat of today on Thursday.
