Gold Spot Price Open: $1,173
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,163
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$10
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.08
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.86
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.22
Precious metals did on Friday what they have done for a majority of the last few weeks; lose value. When all was said and done, gold ended up losing about 7 dollars while silver trekked backwards by almost 20 cents. Platinum lost more than 20 dollars on the day and palladium wrapped up the week by losing close to 10 dollars.
Weekly Jobless Claims Come Back Positively
Though we did not touch on it, yesterday brought about the weekly jobless claims report from the United States. Despite it being mostly overlooked thanks to the ECB meeting, investors were greeted with a report that did well to assuage any fears that the last 2 weeks’ worth of poor data might have created. Officially, first-time jobless claims for the week ending December 3rd backed off by 10,000, bringing the seasonally-adjusted average down to 258,000. This was perfectly aligned with what economists were expecting so it did not have all that much of an impact on the wider marketplace.
Something we can take away from this data is that we have now gone 92 consecutive weeks without seeing the seasonally-adjusted average number of claims exceed 300,000. By most metrics, the labor market in the US is as strong now as it has been in years and only seems to be getting better and better. This is and has been a major factor that has helped give the Fed room to hike interest rates; something we expect to hear a definitive answer about next week. As for the weekly jobless claims’ impact on precious metals, there really wasn’t much of one. It certainly did not aid spot values, but also did very little in the way of pushing spot values lower.
Analysts Look for Metals to Bounce Back
For the last number of months, we have said time and time again that the prospect of interest rates being risen in the near future is something that works against precious metals. While that is true, there are plenty of economic experts who anticipate that precious metals will bounce back in the near future, if not next week.
The reason for this is due to the fact that the aforementioned rate hikes have already been priced into things and that investors are looking ahead to what the future holds. Gold and silver have been beaten down for so long due to a stronger, rallying Dollar. Most believe that that rally is just about over and that metals will see a recovery rally of sorts. Though it is tough to accurately speculate whether or not this rally will come to fruition, or how much of a rally it will really be, this is something that can provide investors with a little bit of relief for the time being.
Adrian Day, CEO of Adrian Day Asset Management, commented on this by saying, “The correction, based on dollar’s rally following the Trump victory, has run its course, at least temporarily, and gold is due for a bounce. Once the Fed’s rate hike is over with, gold will likely see a relief rally.”
Wrap-Up
All things considered, Friday proved to be a rather quiet day across the US and global marketplaces. Next week is sure to be interesting, and even though we all think we know what to expect, the Fed is a big fan of last-minute curveballs. All in all, metals investors will be interested to see if the aforementioned “relief rally” will come into play at all. Spot values have been under constant pressure for so long now that it really does seem as though something has to give sometime soon.
