Gold Spot Price Open: $1,250
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,251
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.00
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.03
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.03
Precious metals spent a majority of the day trending lower, but by the time markets closed had ended up making very small gains. When all was said and done, gold picked up around a dollar while silver was up by a few pennies. Platinum and palladium both trended downward for much of the day and finished Wednesday having posted decent losses.
USD Index Performs Well, Stocks Slide Again
For yet another day, the USD Index performed well and ended up touching a new 13-month high. With that said, however, by the time markets closed the Index had fallen a bit and was seen conceding just a little bit of value. Despite finishing the day in negative fashion, the US Dollar is still very much in control of the marketplace. As a result of this week being a good bit slower than normal, the attention of investors has turned towards the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee next week.
A report from the San Francisco Federal Reserve released yesterday indicated that investors might be underestimating just how quickly the Fed can raise interest rates. This news gave the US Dollar a bit of a boost a day ago and has many rethinking when interest rates in the United States will be raised. There is no saying for sure whether or not the FOMC will discuss the raising of interest rates at next week’s meeting, but this will not discourage investors from speculating.
The growing belief that interest rates will be raised sooner rather than later has recently had its impact on US equity markets, all of which have fared poorly over the first three days of this week. With that said, however, US equity markets, like gold and silver, were able to revert daylong losses and finish Wednesday posting marginal gains.
Other Noteworthy Developments
Trading has been generally subdued this week and so too has the stream of economic data making its way to the public. The fact that a ceasefire in Ukraine is still holding through the first half of the week is encouraging and will allow many besieged parts of the country to receive food, water, and medical aid that has not been available for some time now. Whether this ceasefire will translate into anything along the lines of sustained peace talks or not remains to be seen, but it is a start. We will continue to analyze the situation in Ukraine in order to see what, if anything, happens over the coming days and weeks.
In news made public earlier this morning, 10-year notes auctioned by the German government were posting all-time low yields of 1.05%. In addition to this, demand for the relative safety of German sovereign debt has been on the up and up as of late.
Wrap-Up
As we look ahead to the final two days of the week, it is more than likely that you will witness much of the same subdued trading. There isn’t much economic data set to be made public, and what little data is released will likely have only a small impact on the spot values of precious metals. Next week, with the FOMC meeting and everything that brings, will bring about a much more frenzied, activity-filled 5 day trading session.
