Gold Spot Price Open: $1,206
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,217
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$11
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.50
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.41
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.09
A weaker Dollar continued to help precious metals on Thursday, despite some upbeat economic data being dealt. When all was said and done, gold gained about 11 dollars while silver lost almost 10 cents. Platinum was gaining during the early parts of the day, however it finished having lost a few dollars. Palladium concluded the day in the same position it was in when the day began.
Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Again
After Wednesday brought about an ADP employment report that showed a significant rise in the number of private-sector jobs created month over month, Thursday brought about an upbeat weekly jobless claims report. According to the data, last week saw 14,000 fewer first-time claims for unemployment benefits than the week before. This drop brought the seasonally-adjusted average down to 246,000. Considering that expectations were for the seasonally-adjusted average to be well above 250,000, this data was well-received by most investors.
Though this report did not do gold nor silver any favors, it was mostly overlooked and did not do much to bring spot values down either. Though the last few days’ worth of employment data has been nice to see, the bulk of the attention is going to be placed on tomorrow’s non-farms report from the US Department of Labor. If this data beats expectations, it would be difficult to believe that precious metals would continue gaining. With that said, the Dollar’s continued weakness means anything is possible for precious metals.
Safe-Haven Demand Picking Up
Precious metals are once again seeing a rise in safe-haven demand boost spot values. As you might expect, it is US President Donald Trump who is stoking the safe-haven demand fire this time. In the most recent turn of events, Trump and Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, have been at odds with regard to the currently imposed ban on immigration to the United States for anyone from countries like Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and Libya. This exchange of words came about thanks to a phone call regarding a large grouping of immigrants who are currently in Australia, but were set to make the journey to the United States. Now, because of Trump’s Executive Order, that journey will not be taking place anytime soon.
The immigration ban and the world’s reaction to it have been blamed for the jittery nature of global stock markets this week. Trump has barely been in office for 14 days, and in that time he has already made headlines on an almost daily basis.
As for the USD Index, that hit a 2.5 month low during the day on Thursday and has been trading lower for most of the past few weeks. This, in conjunction with increased safe-haven demand, is something that is continuing to play in the favor of precious metals.
Something that isn’t necessarily helping spot values is the fact that OPEC seems to have done a decent job at stabilizing crude oil prices. After a month of cutting production, a barrel of crude oil has remained consistently between $50 and $55. This is much better than the drastic swings we saw throughout much of the past year or more.
Wrap-Up
As you might expect, the attention of the marketplace has now turned to tomorrow’s non-farms payrolls data. Currently, expectations are quite low, with experts anticipating that about 175,000 non-farm jobs were added last month. That is a low expectations and the early consensus is that it very well might be outdone by the actual data. For precious metals, how the week comes to a conclusion will depend heavily on the tone of the employment data. Naturally, we will also be keeping a close eye on anything and everything said and done by President Donald Trump.
