Gold Spot Price Open: $1,110
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,105
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$5
Silver Spot Price Open: $14.46
Silver Spot Price Close: $14.41
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.05
Precious metals backed down a bit on Tuesday as speculation regarding interest rate hikes continues to move forward. When all was said and done, gold lost a few dollars while silver declined by about two cents. Platinum and palladium both added value on the day, with palladium being the bigger gainer of the two.
Economic Data Helps Clarify Rate Hike Outlook
As has already been made painfully clear, the marketplace is going to spend most of the early parts of this week speculating with regard to what is going to happen to interest rates in the United States come the conclusion of the Fed’s latest meeting. US stocks were pushed forward during the early parts of the day thanks to a report claiming that August retail sales ticked upward; marking two consecutive months of upbeat retail sales.
Despite all the volatility across the global marketplace during August, it is clear to see that US households are spending money. Most experts agree that this excess expendable cash is coming as a direct result of cheaper energy.
Today’s data was not all upbeat, however, as a separate report showed that industrial production fell during August at a rate not seen since this past January. Automakers seemed to have scaled back their production while a continuously strengthening US Dollar seems to be keeping foreign purchasers away. All of this data definitely plays into the interest rate hike discussion, but in reality today’s data has not done much in the way of altering opinions. It is still generally believed that rate hikes are not going to be announced this week, with some people thinking that the announcement may come as late as December. Still, the speculation will continue tomorrow as the Fed sets to kick off its monthly policy meeting.
German Consumer Sentiment Takes A Hit
A report out of Europe’s leading economy on Tuesday delivered a noticeable blow to stocks across the region. German economic sentiment was reported as having trended downward during the month of August, and this news has investors in the region a bit concerned that Europe’s economic troubles are far from over. As a leading EU economy, investors turn to Germany to gauge the overall strength of the region. Though figures out of Europe have been generally upbeat lately, today’s report regarding economic sentiment is a nice reminder that Europe still has a long way to go in order to fully recover.
European equities were not helped at all by China’s Shanghai Index moving downward by more than 3.5% today. So many investors have strong doubts that China’s government will be able to do enough to get the country’s economy back on track, and that much is showing in the equity market. This continued volatility lends itself to the growing belief that interest rate hikes are not going to occur come this Thursday. Now, the hope is that, if nothing else, Janet Yellen will deliver some sort of concrete info regarding interest rate hikes by the conclusion of their meeting on Thursday.
Wrap-Up
As was expected, today proved to be yet another fairly slow day across the global marketplace. What US economic data was delivered ended up not having all that much of an impact on the market nor the outlook on interest rate hikes. People are still convinced that rate hikes will not happen this week, though that much we will find out come Thursday. All in all, there really isn’t much for the market to pay attention to apart from the Fed kicking off their meeting tomorrow.
