Gold Spot Price Open: $1,295
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,283
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$12
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.61
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.47
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.14
Precious metals continued to feel pressure on Thursday as more upbeat US economic data was made public earlier in the day. When all was said and done, gold lost about 12 dollars while silver declined by about 14 cents. Platinum and palladium also trended downwards for a majority of the day.
USD Index Surges In Response to More Upbeat Economic Data
The USD Index, which measures the US Dollar against a basket of rival currencies, has been seen continuously rising throughout the month of July. More recently, the greenback has been trending upward in direct response to upbeat US economic data as well as a weaker euro currency in the wake of looser monetary policy across the EU.
Helping the greenback today was a report claiming that last week’s revised jobless claims were the lowest since the middle of 2000. Now, investors are looking ahead to tomorrow’s July employment report in order to gauge the strength of the US economy through yet another lens this week. As it stands, expectations are that at least 230,000 jobs were added to the economy in July.
Gold Set for 2.5% Decline In July
It’s no secret that the month of July has treated gold’s spot value rather poorly. With recent US economic data showing signs of an improving US economy, risk-appetite exhibited by investors has been on the rise over the last few weeks. As such, investor interest in precious metals, specifically gold, has fallen dramatically.
Not helping precious metals at all is the growing belief that interest rates in the United States are going to be risen sometime in the near future. Making that notion seem a bit more plausible was the large quantity of upbeat US economic data made public this week. Speaking on the matter was Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch when he was quoted as saying, “The economic data catalyst was much stronger than people had anticipated today…we see underlying inflationary pressures ticking up, therefore increasing the likelihood of Fed rate hikes.” After the FOMC failed to provide any more insight into their plans on hiking interest rates, the wider investing world will continue analyzing US economic data in order to see if the US economy will continue to show signs of improvement.
Disappointing Corporate Earnings Push US, Global Equities Downward
After fluctuating through the first half of the week, it is slowly but surely looking like US stock markets will be ending the week and month in the red. Today, disappointing corporate earnings reports from major companies like Exxon Mobil and Whole Foods Market worked to push equities downward by considerable margins. Now, it seems almost unavoidable that US equity markets will finish the month in the red for the first time since last January.
Wrap-Up
As we look ahead to the last day of the week and first day of August, investors will be anxiously awaiting the mid-afternoon release of July’s employment figures. Apart from tomorrow’s employment report, however, there really isn’t much else on the slate. As we head into the weekend, investors will eye the large quantity of geopolitical developments in Ukraine and Gaza, but it is not likely that they will have any major impact on the spot values of precious metals.
