Gold Spot Price Open: $1,234
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,230
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.69
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.56
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.13
Gold and silver finished the day down, but only slightly as bargain-hunting ended up saving both precious metals from repeating the dismal performance we saw on Thursday. When the day was through, gold lost about 4 dollars while silver lost a few pennies over a dime.
The most important part of today for investors was the release of November’s jobs data. While there were plenty of other economic reports published this week, investors put a majority of their interest into what the Labor Department’s jobs report had to say. As of yesterday, the marketplace was expecting to see somewhere in the neighborhood of 175,000 non-farm payrolls added in November. Much to the surprise of investors everywhere, however, the actual figures showed that 204,000 non-farm payrolls were added this past November. As you might have expected, this positive report caused gold to fall to a new 5-month low in the immediate aftermath of the data being made public. Only a short while later, however, bargain-hunting buying was so strong that it ended up pulling gold up from its daily and multi-month lows.
Now the focus of the marketplace turns toward the December FOMC policy meeting, which is scheduled to take place between December 16th and 18th. The stronger than expected economic data we witnessed this week only strengthens the notion that the Fed will taper QE sooner rather than later, but when exactly is sooner rather than later? For many, this means that the FOMC will announce their tapering of QE at December’s policy meeting, for others, though, sooner rather than later means that the Fed will decide to taper sometime in the next few months, not necessarily this December. Regardless of when investors think tapering will ensue, the only time we will find out for sure is at the FOMC meeting. Nonetheless, you can expect a boatload of speculation with regard to the timing of QE’s tapering over the course of the next week or so. Adding to that, it does not look like market bears will relinquish their control of the precious metals market, meaning it will continue to be difficult for gold and silver to post consistent gains.
