Gold Spot Price Open: $1,239
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,243
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.73
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.09
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.36
Small gains posted by gold and silver on Monday are largely being attributed to short-covering one day before the FOMC policy meeting is scheduled to kick off. When the day was done, gold gained 4 dollars and silver was able to pick up just pennies short of 40 cents.
Even though the highly anticipated FOMC meeting is scheduled to begin tomorrow, investors will not hear any concrete news until the meeting concludes on Wednesday afternoon. The bulk of the meeting’s contents and outcomes are usually disclosed at a post-meeting press conference, and this time will be no different.
Monday yielded few pieces of economic data and no major geopolitical developments. This lack of inputs gave investors nothing else to talk about other than tomorrow’s FOMC policy meeting. At this point, most of the market seems to be expecting Quantitative Easing to begin to be tapered after this week’s meeting. Recently upbeat economic data in conjunction with a calmer geopolitical atmosphere in the United States are two of the biggest reasons why the market seems to be expecting a reduction of Quantitative Easing to happen as a result of this week’s FOMC policy meeting.
Despite news from other markets being light today, Europe did witness a its fastest rising manufacturing data in over two years. This news prompted both European stocks and the euro currency to make slight gains on Monday. Officially, the EU’s preliminary manufacturing PMI for December came in at 52.7, much better than November’s reading of 51.5. Though the PMI may mean nothing to you, any number above 50 signifies an economy which is growing. China’s preliminary manufacturing PMI, on the other hand, was not as upbeat as the EU’s for December.
