Gold Spot Price Open: $1,240
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,236
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.36
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.17
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.19
Gold and silver seem to be losing any sort of momentum that was gained this week as we inch closer and closer to the weekend. When all was said and done on Thursday, gold was down by a few dollars while silver lost 19 cents. Platinum and palladium also lost on the day, with platinum being the bigger loser of the two.
Stronger Durable Goods Orders Lift Stocks, the USD
With this week being nothing to write home about as far as US economic data is concerned, investors were dealt just a little bit of good news. According to reports made public earlier today, durable goods orders in the United States in January jumped forward by nearly 5%. After dipping by more than 4.6% the month before, investors are just a bit more confident that US factories may soon begin to perform better. For gold and silver, the fact that today’s Commerce Department data came back better than expected was bad news. Luckily, losses incurred by precious metals were more muted than anything else thanks to the Dollar losing some value by day’s end.
After a few weeks of falling jobless claims, the Labor Department said that first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose last week by about 10,000. This brings the seasonally-adjusted average number of claims back above 270,000. This is not the worst news in the world, but did well to derail growing confidence in the US employment sector. Now we will wait and see what February’s non-farms data will have to say about job growth when it is released in the coming weeks.
The US economy will remain under the spotlight for the time being because it is one of very few major global economies that is still performing decently. Investors the world over will be curious to see if the US economy can hang on, or if the strengthening global slowdown will grasp hold of the United States as well.
Crude Oil Falls, then Gains
Even though some of the world’s largest refiners of crude oil agreed to curb production in order to fight the ongoing supply-glut, the price of crude oil has not noticeably improved. While the day initially saw crude oil prices continuing to fall, things turned around by the afternoon on rumors that major oil-producing countries would meet again in March for another discussion.
Reportedly, representatives from Venezuela will meet with representatives from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Russia sometime in March to discuss what can be done to keep oil prices from falling even further than they already have. At the present moment in time, even today’s slight gains are not even coming close to scratching the surface of the problems currently faced by crude oil producers and refiners.
It must also be noted that a meeting is really a moot point so long as no real change comes as a result. Countries such as these have met in the past, but time and time again they cannot see eye to eye with regard to how they will go about limiting production. Everyone wants their share, and it is simply not a reasonable request to ask a country like Saudi Arabia to simply stop producing oil for even a few hours.
Wrap-Up
Gold and silver have not done much moving this week, but what movement has taken place has been mostly in the downward direction. With the beginning of the latest G-20 meeting set for tomorrow, it will be interesting if any of the multitude of discussed topics will help precious metals finish the week on a strong note.