Gold Spot Price Open: $1,196
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,178
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$18
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.17
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.72
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.45
Precious metals traded mostly downward to start what will be a shortened week due to the Christmas holiday falling on Thursday. When all was said and done, gold lost more than fifteen dollars while silver accumulated losses somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 cents. Platinum spent most of the day trending downward by little more than ten dollars, but palladium managed to add some value; just shy of 10 dollars.
Russia Reportedly Boosting Its Gold Reserves
Over the last few weeks, Russia has been in and out of the news, mostly because their economy, which has been underperforming for quite some time, is faring particularly poorly. To begin this week, Russia has made it back into the headlines, but this time we are discussing the fact that the large nation has been continually adding gold to its reserves for the better part of the past year.
According to a report released towards the end of the week last week. Russia has seen its gold holdings advance past 38 million ounces. Just a month ago, Russia had little more than 37 million ounces. The report went on to say that for the past 8 months, Russia has increased its gold holdings. Most people agree that the Kremlin is pursuing purchases of gold as a means of helping the flailing ruble. According to multiple sources, the Russian ruble has lost more than 50% of its value this year and is continuing to fare poorly.
It will be interesting to see, as we head into 2015, how the Russian economy is doing and whether or not Russia is still adding gold to its holdings. Up to this point, most experts agree that Russia increasingthe size of its gold holdings is doing more in the way of mitigating the negative effects their economy is currently feeling than actually bringing the economy into a better position.
Stocks Perform Well to Open Up a Short Week of Trading
Adding to impressive displays put forward toward the end of last week, European and US equity markets spent much of Monday adding value. Fueled by better-performing energy shares (even while oil is falling), stock markets surprised everyone by having a nice day at the market today.
Even the S&P 500, which put on its best weekly performance in more than 60 days last week, was seen adding value through the afternoon. Unfortunately, record-breaking gains last week meant that today’s gains were limited in nature. Still, US stocks had a great day and because of that, put a lot of pressure on gold and silver.
Dollar Slumps on Downbeat US Economic Data
In the United States, it was reported that purchases of new homes was slower during November than in any of the previous 6 months. According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales fell 6.1% to a new, seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million. Compared to a pace of more than 5 million in October, you can see that the newer numbers are only seeming to get worse.
Experts are saying that stagnant wage growth is a major part of the reason why existing homes have been sitting on the market for so long. In addition to the fact that people are basically making the same amount of money, the reality is that the price of an average home is on the rise. So long as people are attempting to buy more expensive homes with the same amount of pay, the longer those homes will remain vacant.
As we head into the new year, I imagine there will be an increased focus on wage growth, or lack thereof. This is especially true because it is slowly but surely being realized that slow/non-existent wage growth is having a harmful impact on other areas of the US and global economy.
Wrap-Up
Though this week is gearing up to be fairly slow, you wouldn’t know that after taking into consideration just how many factors there were for investors to consider today. Still, as we inch closer to Christmas, more people will be utilizing vacation time in order to get a jump-start on their holiday preparations.
