Gold Spot Price Open: $1,290
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,291
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.27
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.27
Change in Silver Spot Price: NO CHANGE
Gold and silver performed well for a third straight day on Wednesday, marked by gold hitting a new 3-month high earlier in the day before receding and finishing the day having gained only a dollar. Silver mimicked gold, and by day’s end finished in the same exact spot as when the day began.
Gold and silver ended up making marginal gains once the marketplace had time to fully digest Janet Yellen’s inaugural address to Congress on Tuesday. Apart from finding out that Yellen is none too different than her predecessor Ben Bernanke, most were intrigued when she made it clear that the Fed is in no rush to eliminate Quantitative Easing. This comment has led more people to believe that the FOMC may hold off on further tapering moves at their next policy meeting.
China, like the US, has been experiencing a bit of a lull with regard to recent economic performance. Today, however, the plot shifted once more as a report on Chinese imports and exports in January blew the socks off of market expectations. Despite market expectations of a .1% rise in annual exports in January, the Chinese actually ended up boosting exports by 10.6% on an annual basis. Imports for last month followed in the footsteps of Chinese exports, also up over 10% on an annual basis. This news gave gold and silver a modest boost as China is the world’s largest consumer of precious metals.
In other news from around the world, the Bank of England announced today that it had increased its forecast for GDP growth in 2014. Despite a modest forecast of 2.8% GDP growth for the UK made by the BOE earlier this year, today they bumped up their prediction to 3.4% annual growth. Mark Carney, the governor of the BOE, also claimed that the UK will see its unemployment rate fall to or below 7% at some point this year. This statement is of even greater significance because Carney, back in August, said that the BOE would consider raising interest rates if the unemployment rate hits that key 7% mark.
Tomorrow will see the release of the weekly jobless claims report, and apart from that is shaping up to be relatively a quiet day of trading.