Gold Spot Price Open: $1,072
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,078
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$6
Silver Spot Price Open: $14.38
Silver Spot Price Close: $14.45
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.07
Precious metals managed to gain on Thursday and head into an extended holiday weekend having not performed too badly at all. When all was said and done, gold managed to gain about 6 dollars while silver’s gains rang in at around 7 cents. Platinum and palladium gained on the day, with platinum picking up about fifteen dollars while palladium added nearly 10.
December Not Favorable for USD
As has been the case a bit more frequently recently, the US Dollar fell against a basket of rival currencies. If you are thinking that the month of December saw the US Dollar trend downward more often than not, you are not wrong in your thinking. This is so because December is now on track to host the biggest monthly losses for the greenback since last April. Despite the Dollar’s poor performance of late, most experts agree that the greenback’s future looks bright.
With some expecting the Fed to raise interest rates an additional four times during 2016, the long-term outlook for the USD is upbeat to say the least. After an initial increase in the wake of the Fed’s decision to hike interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, the Dollar has been losing value more often than not. This week is no exception and it looks like the US currency is going to be limping its way into the New Year.
Weekly Jobless Claims Data Dealt
For this being a shortened holiday week, there sure was an awful lot of US economic data. Earlier in the week we were dealt both the existing and new homes sales reports, and today brought about the weekly jobless claims from the United States. On Thursday the Labor Department reported that first time claims for unemployment benefits fell by roughly 5,000 last week, bringing the seasonally adjusted number to 267,000. This piece of data was seen as a positive simply due to the fact that most experts were expecting the adjusted number to be at 270,000 or higher.
The news wasn’t all good, however, as the four-week moving average of unemployment claims ticked upward by 1,500. For those who are unaware, the four-week moving average is often weighted more heavily than the weekly report because it is seen as a more accurate assessment of the unemployment landscape as a whole. The employment sector of the US economy seems as though it will finish the year strong–an indication that the US economy, despite some recent economic data points, is still performing quite well.
Wrap-Up
Apart from the US economic data dealt on Thursday, it was a mostly quiet day of trading. In fact, it will be interesting to see the type of reaction we see come Monday because most investors have not yet had a chance to really pour over this data and determine how it will affect their decisions moving forward. Next week marks the last week of 2015 trading, and though I am hopeful for some exciting developments, history suggests that it will be just as slow as this week has proven to be. For gold and silver this has turned out to be a good thing, so it will be intriguing to see if gains can be sustained or even built upon.