Gold Spot Price Open: $1,299
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,319
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$20
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.43
Silver Spot Price Close: $21.48
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$1.05
Gold and silver capped off a positive week in impressive fashion on Friday as both metals made substantial gains to bring to a close what has been the most upbeat 5-day trading session in months. When all was said and done, gold gained about 20 dollars on Friday while silver picked up a nickel more than a whole dollar.
As economic uncertainty creeps more readily into the US marketplace, the number of investors turning to safe-haven gold and silver is beginning to pick up rapidly. Despite US equities making unusually large gains on Wednesday and Thursday, Friday saw them back to their old habits as most major US stock indexes began declining as soon as trading began today. This growing sense of uncertainty is causing more investors to think that the FOMC will hold off on tapering at their next policy meeting. This notion was also helped along after newly appointed Fed chairperson, Janet Yellen, made it clear that the Fed is in no rush to do away with Quantitative Easing.
After this week, it is becoming increasingly evident that the precious metals bulls have the momentum heading into the latter stages of February. The first quarter of 2014 has already proven to be beneficial for gold and silver, and so long as investor uneasiness with regard to the US economy and emerging markets continues, so too will gold and silver’s positive runs. The US Dollar is still of the utmost importance to precious metals investors, and will be watched closely over the next few weeks in order to see if it will weaken even more than it already has. Putting pressure on the dollar this week was, among other things, the Bank of England announcement that GDP growth for 2014 will be better than originally expected.
Next week will yield an increased amount of market-relevant economic data, and will undoubtedly be more action-packed than this week has been.
