Gold Spot Price Open: $1,360
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,367
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$7
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.74
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.15
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.41
Gold and silver posted solid results on Friday to close out what has been a mostly lackluster week. When all was said and done, gold gained close to 10 dollars while silver gained more than 40 cents. Platinum and palladium moved upward on the day as well, but only by a few dollars apiece.
Jobs Data Caps Upbeat Week for US Economic Data
So far this week we have been on the receiving end of quite a bit of upbeat economic data from the United States. Beginning on Wednesday, the ADP private-sector payrolls growth report was published and showed that well over the estimated 150,000 jobs were created last month. This was good news, but as is typically the case it was mostly ignored by investors. A day later, the Labor Department published its weekly jobless claims report which showed first-time claims for unemployment benefits dropped significantly week over week.
Capping off the upbeat employment data was the Labor Department’s reading on non-farm jobs growth for the month of June. Officially, about 287,000 new non-farm jobs were created last month, making June the best month for job growth since this past October. Unfortunately, this did not do much for gold and silver as it did well to quell safe-haven demand, which has been recently spiking. All in all, however, the week as a whole was not so bad for precious metals, but was about the worst week we have seen in the past month or more.
Other economic data released this week shined a bright light on the US services sector, which improved dramatically in June. While this is all good news, it does not do much to alter the current outlook on future interest rate hikes—which holds that further rate hikes are not going to come until sometime next year, at the earliest. As for what this week means for precious metals, that much is not so clear. If economic data in places other than the US mimics what we have seen this week, I imagine that gold and silver will be feeling a bit more pressure than they were previously. Still, as you can plainly see, most of the gains recorded over the past few weeks have been preserved, at least for the time being.
Dollar Rebounds as Global Market Stabilize
Through the last few days of this week we have seen markets in the US and around the world settle down a bit after going through a frenzied few weeks following the UK’s decision to abandon the EU. With today’s mightily upbeat jobs report, the global marketplace is that much calmer. Though so many people still have no idea what the future holds, people are beginning to latch on to the idea that the US economy is, in fact, a top-performer. This alone is enough to quell the worries on the minds of so many investors.
Still, with this bit of clarity comes an abundance of confusion and questions that remain unanswered. With all of that we are seeing a marketplace that is still very bullish on precious metals.
Wrap-Up
This shortened week of trading did not offer much in the way of fresh, fundamental news, but it did provide us with a slate of upbeat US economic data to contend with. For precious metals, most of the data worked against spot values, but it is clear to see who has the momentum as spot values only faltered a little bit in the wake of the upbeat figures. As we head into next week and the first full, uninterrupted week of July trading, eyes will continue to be firmly fixated on Europe and other economies directly influenced by BRExit.
