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    JM Bullion Gold and Silver Market Update (2/1/17)

    Gold Spot Price Open: $1,215

    Gold Spot Price Close: $1,213

    Change in Gold Spot Price: -$2

    Silver Spot Price Open: $17.59

    Silver Spot Price Close: $17.52

    Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.07

    Precious metals fell on Wednesday thanks to the Dollar and stocks rebounding to some extent. When all was said and done, gold lost about 2 dollars while silver lost more than 5 cents. Platinum and palladium both finished the day right around where they began it.

    Stocks, Dollar Rebound

    The biggest factor that hurt precious metals on Wednesday was the fact that both US stocks as well as the USD Index were on the up and up. With that happening, it was always going to be difficult for precious metals to extend recent gains. With that said, both gold and silver are sitting above key psychological price points, with gold above $1,200/ounce while silver is well above the $17/ounce threshold.

    Another big talking point, but one that did not necessarily hurt precious metals, was the fact that the FOMC released a statement following their January monetary policy meeting, which wrapped up this afternoon. The Fed remained fairly neutral in their statement, saying that they are going to keep interest rates unchanged for the time being. As for what the Federal Reserve thinks about US economic growth, they admitted that the economy is continuing to expand at a modest pace. For gold and silver, this somewhat boring post-meeting statement helped spot values bounce off of daily lows. Going forward, we anticipate that the lackluster statement made today will continue to play in metals’ favor as it gave investors no more reason to believe that rates will be hiked in the near future. Though there is still a lot of folks who do think further rate hikes are coming, most of those folks agree that further hikes will not be making an appearance until the early Spring, if not even further down the road.

    Upbeat US Economic Data Dealt

    The US ISM manufacturing index was released today and showed month over month improvement from December to January. Officially, the index showed an increase from a reading of 54.5 in December to a reading of 56 in January. Though this really means a lot of different things, the big takeaway is that the manufacturing sector of the economy is growing. Though any reading above 50 is great and shows signs of growth, a reading of 56 is one of the best we have seen in quite some time. As you might have expected, this report being released in the morning did gold and silver spot values absolutely no favors whatsoever.

    Also hurting gold and silver was the ADP employment report, which kicked off the first of three days of unemployment data. Though the ADP report is not viewed as the most important analysis on jobs, investors often use it to get a feel for the Labor Department’s non-farms payrolls data, which is due out on Friday. Officially, the payrolls processing company showed that more than 200,000 private-sector jobs were added to the economy from December to January. This is an absolutely massive increase and one that caught the attention of investors who might have otherwise ignored this report. What’s more, it is leading people to believe that Friday’s non-farms data is going to show equally strong growth. If this proves to be the case, metals may be in for a rough end to this week.

    Wrap-Up

    All things considered, today was an active day, but one that is going to be overlooked by the time the week comes to an end. There is still a boatload of economic data still to be dealt, and that is sure to have some impact on metals. If the tone of the data remains positive, metals very well might be in for a tough next few days.

    Disclaimer: All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.

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