Gold Spot Price Open: $1,346
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,338
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$8
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.13
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.64
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.49
Gold and silver ended up losing on Friday, but before the day was through they were given some support thanks to weaker than expected US economic data. When all was said and done, gold ended up losing about 8 dollars while silver backtracked by well over 40 cents. Platinum and palladium also lost on the day, however platinum was the larger loser seeing as the metal lost nearly 20 dollars on the day.
US Economic Data Helps Precious Metals Somewhat
Though there was not much economic data dealt this week, Friday brought with it a few pieces of noteworthy data. Even though the US reports were mostly weak, these did not lend all that much support to precious metals and did more in the way of mitigating losses than anything else.
Officially, July retail sales were unchanged from June even though most polled experts were expecting an increase of a half percent. As you could have probably guessed, the weaker retail sales report is great for investors who do not want to see interest rates hiked anytime soon. Truth be told, however, this solitary report was not likely to alter the interest rate outlook too greatly one way or another.
As a result of the weaker retail sales report, US stocks as well as the US Dollar took a bit of a hit. By day’s end, both assets were in the red and ended the week on a sour note. For precious metals, the weaker than expected data was good news, but as was mentioned above it did little in the way of contributing to any gains.
Chinese Economic Data Dealt
It seems as though it has been a while since we have discussed the Chinese economy, and that much changed today with the release of the latest industrial production report. According to the data, July industrial production in China was up by more than 6% year on year, which is a nice bit of growth for an economy that has been noticeably struggling for quite some time. Adding to the good news, year on year July retail sales were up by more than 10%; perhaps pointing towards a recovery on the part of the Chinese economy.
Even though, at face value, all of this Chinese data seems to be more upbeat than anything else, the fact of the matter is that both of these reports came in at the lower end of expectations. To be fair, China sets forth fairly lofty expectations for itself. So, even though these figures would be great for the US economy, they do not do much in the way of impressing those that are hoping China’s economy will soon recover.
For gold and silver, the data from China was more of a miss than anything else as it did not necessarily boost spot values and, in the same breath, did not deter them from moving forward either.
Wrap-Up
All things considered, Friday brought with it a good bit of economic data from around the world and was able to end a somewhat lackluster week on a more upbeat note. For precious metals, however, the last 5 trading days have been anything but upbeat. The fact of the matter is that, barring any huge changes to the market, gold and silver are likely to be stuck in a well-defined range with decent downside pressure thanks to a USD that has been performing well. Should US economic data continue to be upbeat, precious metals are likely to face even more downside pressure. Upon market’s open next week, I would not be at all surprised to see both gold and silver move very little.
