Gold Spot Price Open: $1,307
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,284
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$23
Silver Spot Price Open: $18.49
Silver Spot Price Close: $18.16
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.33
Precious metals ended up taking a hit and giving back a lot of the gains that were made last week. When all was said and done, gold lost in upwards of 25 dollars while silver conceded more than 30 cents. Platinum and palladium actually both made gains on the day, but platinum was only up by about a dollar while palladium finished up by more than 25 dollars.
FBI Ends Email Probe with No Charges
A little more than a week ago, news broke that the FBI was reopening its probe into Hillary Clinton and her apparent use of private email servers to handle and transfer classified information.
Though the FBI did not explicitly say what it was looking for, we learned over the weekend that, for a second time, no charges would be filed against the Democratic Presidential nominee.
Once news broke that the probe would be conducted for a second time, precious metals immediately were given a boost, as were Donald Trump’s poll numbers. Thinking that this second probe might derail Clinton’s momentum and ensure a Trump victory come the conclusion of tomorrow’s election, people scrambled to get their hands on safe-haven metals. After all, the prospect of President Trump is one that breeds a lot of uncertainty and, as you may know, metals tend to benefit from uncertainty. Now that we know no charges will be filed, it once again seems as though Clinton is going to emerge victorious come the end of the day tomorrow. As such, metals spot values are suffering.
While many people are taking Clinton’s victory for granted, there are plenty of indications that perhaps the race is a lot closer than it looks at face value. What this means for metals is still up in the air, but you can rest-assured knowing that the next few days will be quite the wild ride.
Stocks Benefit From FBI Probe Coming to an End
If it was not already plainly clear, there was not much in the way of fresh, fundamental news for investors to talk about. Another outcome of the conclusion of the FBI probe into Clinton’s email usage was that stocks bounced back after some pretty poor runs. The S&P 500, for example, snapped a near 10-day losing streak on Monday; the longest such streak the index has seen in more than 30 years.
European stocks were also up on the day and this too is being directly tied to the FBI’s probe yielding no charges. Luke Hickmore, of Aberdeen Asset Management, commented on the performance of equity markets today by saying, “Financial markets are going to stay febrile as we enter the last throes of the campaign. Investors were largely concluding that Hillary would win before the FBI announced it was looking at the new emails last week. With that issue now out of the way, financial markets will probably double down on Hillary winning.”
Understanding this, you can see why precious metals are pulling back to begin this week. Until the final results of this week’s election are in, you can bet that metals will continue to trend lower or sideways.
Wrap-Up
Precious metals, particularly gold and silver, took a nice hit on Monday, though no one was particularly surprised. There isn’t a wealth of economic data expected to be released this week, and you can bet that any of the data that is released will likely be overlooked thanks to the whirlwind of political headlines the next few days will emit.
