Gold Spot Price Open: $1,288
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,289
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.82
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.83
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.01
Gold and silver made negligible gains on Friday as there were few inputs strong enough to push metals in either direction. At the end of the day gold picked up a dollar while silver managed to gain only a single penny.
With no news stories to talk about on Friday the marketplace continued to focus on Janet Yellen’s remarks made on both Wednesday and Thursday. Janet Yellen is currently being labeled the favorite to replace Ben Bernanke as head of the Federal Reserve, and because of this she was scheduled to speak in front of US senators as well as the US Senate Banking Committee. Ms. Yellen made it clear that she was a big supporter of Bernanke’s policies when she said that her intent is to maintain accommodative monetary policies in the US if and when she becomes the head of the United States’ central bank. This news gave gold and silver a boost at the end of the day on Wednesday and Thursday. Today, however, it seems as though the immediate effect of Yellen’s comments have passed as gold and silver once again stalled.
Low inflation is continuing to be a mainstay in Europe as the EU released a report which said that the inflation rate in the region is now at a 4-year low of .7%. This week’s economic data out of Europe has made the ECB’s recent decision to cut its lending rate look like an intelligent one.
As of now there are two distinct schools of thought with regard to Quantitative Easing. On one side you have those who still believe that QE will be tapered at this December’s FOMC policy meeting. On the other side exists those who believe the Fed will leave monetary policy untouched until the middle parts of 2014. To be honest, the latter seems the likelier of the two but as the past has shown us time and time again, anything can happen.
