Gold Spot Price Open: $1,350
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,339
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$11
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.28
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.88
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.40
Gold and silver dipped on Thursday thanks to some news regarding the future of the crude oil market. When all was said and done, gold lost about 8 dollars while silver backtracked by about 30 cents. Platinum and palladium were hit hard on the day as both metals lost more than 30 dollars apiece.
Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Again
Something that did not do metals any favors was the weekly jobless claims report, which came back and showed even fewer first-time claims for unemployment benefits filed. Officially, last week saw 1,000 fewer claims filed than the week before, and this brings the seasonally-adjusted average number of claims to about 266,000. This now marks 75 consecutive weeks where the jobless claims figure has remained under 300,000, which is a big psychological boost for some investors and especially for those who are keen on seeing interest rates raised sooner rather than later.
The 4-week moving average of jobless claims did move upward slightly, but not enough to derail the overly positive tone of recent jobless claims reports. All in all, the US labor market, though slightly less productive as determined by a report released earlier in the week, seems to be gaining strength all the time and does not look like it will slow up anytime soon. So long as the seasonally-adjusted average remains below the 300,000 threshold, investors are going to be perfectly content.
Saudi Arabia Stirs Up Crude Oil Talks
Over the past few days we have seen investors increase their interest in the crude oil market for a few different reasons. For one, there are rumors that the Middle Eastern oil cartel OPEC will hold a meeting in early September to once again discuss the possibility of member-nations cutting their daily crude oil production. Immediately following these rumors the United States published a report that showed US crude stockpiles are far larger than most people had anticipated. Naturally, this news drove the value of crude oil downward, but today we are seeing the commodity recover a bit thanks to comments emerging from Saudi Arabia.
The energy minister of Saudi Arabia was quoted Thursday as saying that at next month’s meeting, top crude oil producers are going to take action in order to stabilize the market. In so many words, Khalid al-Falih is saying that there will be efforts made in order to curb the daily output of crude oil from OPEC nations. We have heard similar things in the past, and with each passing OPEC meeting almost nothing emerges as a result. This time it seems as though a few more people are convinced that OPEC will, in fact, take some sort of decisive action to push spot values higher for an extended period of time.
Also helping push crude oil spot values a bit higher was news of a large fire taking place at a US-based refinery. A Louisiana oil refinery caught on fire earlier this morning and the flames are still blazing. Though there is only limited information known at this time, the event itself is lending some support to crude oil’s spot value.
Wrap-Up
All things considered, today was slightly more eventful than what we have experienced thus far this week. Looking ahead to tomorrow, it is tough to say that the case will be the same. There are no noteworthy pieces of economic data on the table. Something that will be of some interest to investors is the result of this Louisiana oil refinery fire, however it is not highly likely that this will have much of an impact on the US nor global marketplaces.
