Gold Spot Price Open: $1,308
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,305
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$3
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.76
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.64
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.12
Precious metals experienced contrasting fates on Monday, but for the most part things remained relatively quiet and subdued. When all was said and done today, gold lost about 3 dollars while silver’s losses were a little larger than ten cents. Palladium made some marginal gains on the day, but platinum was the real winner as its spot value improved by roughly ten dollars.
Busy US Economic Week Ahead
Today was a typical summer day in that it was quiet and did not play host to many pieces of economic data. The rest of this week, however, will likely be a bit more active than today simply due to the large quantity of US economic reports making their way to the market’s attention. The most highly anticipated facet of this week will undoubtedly be the FOMC’s latest meeting and post-meeting statement by Fed Chair Janet Yelen. Beginning tomorrow, the FOMC’s policy meeting will last until sometime on Wednesday afternoon.
Also taking place on Wednesday is the release of the United States’ second-quarter GDP report. Finally, closing out the week on Friday is July’s employment report for the United States. After June’s extremely upbeat non-farms data, there are many investors who are expecting much of the same upon the release of July’s job growth figures on Friday.
US Equity Markets Improve, But Hold Mostly Steady
More risk-appetite was exhibited by traders on Monday, though most investors were seen holding their positions in preparation for the full week of economic data that lay just around the bend. With some more information regarding US interest rates potentially on the slate this week, investors will be closely watching every bit of news resulting from the FOMC’s meeting.
Describing the current US equity market atmosphere perfectly today was Robert Pavlik, a chief strategist at Banyan Partners, when he was quoted as saying, “I think the market is doing what it should be doing. It’s not getting sucked into all the bad news out there. Russia is lobbing bombs into Ukraine, and that appears like it could spiral out of control. The Middle East looks out of control. But the stock market is trading near an all-time high.” So long as the good economic news continues to file in, stock market investors will have little need to read too much into the number of ongoing geopolitical happenings. Being that such is the case, it makes perfect sense why people are touting this week as being the most important week of economic data this summer.
Wrap-Up
Despite today being a very quiet day of trading, the marketplace is still abuzz with activity as investors gear up for this week’s pending economic data. In addition to that, geopolitics is still sitting comfortably on the back-burner of the market’s attention. There were very few noteworthy developments over the weekend, and even though battles are being waged in Ukraine and once more on the Gaza Strip, investors are preoccupied with what very well might be the busiest week they are going to experience for some time to come.
