Gold Spot Price Open: $1,260
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,259
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $18.43
Silver Spot Price Close: $18.24
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.13
Precious metals picked up right where they left off last week, however by day’s end both gold and silver backed down and ended the day with losses. When all was said and done, gold finished the day having lost 4 dollars while silver actually lost about 19 cents. Platinum and palladium finished the day in the green, with platinum tacking on about 3 dollars while palladium added more than 10.
Metals Start Week Off Strong
Monday saw precious metals open up day trading in much the same way they navigated through the whole of last week, with a lot of strength. A small dip in the spot values of metals overnight prompted a lot of physical purchases by folks who were convinced that the dip was nothing more than temporary. Though spot values eventually ended up retreating by day’s end, it is still very clear to see that the ball is in metal’s court for the time being.
Helping precious metals for yet another trading session was a weaker US Dollar. As we discussed last week, we are at an interesting point in time where Dollar weakness works in favor of precious metals, while a stronger Dollar is not doing all that much to hurt spot values. There is no saying how long this will last, but it is doing a lot to keep precious metals elevated.
Some US Economic Data Dealt
Being that we are in the midst of the final days of trading for February, month-end economic data is already beginning to pop up on investors’ radar. Today, the marketplace was on the receiving end of the most recent pending home sales data from the National Association of Realtors. According to the NAR, the pending home sales index for January fell by 2.8% from the final month of 2016. This brought the index reading to 106.4 from December’s upwardly revised reading of 109.5. The near 3% drop in and of itself was quite large, but the tone of the data was made worse by the fact that consensus expectations called for a more than 1.5% rise. On top of all of that, it means 2017 was off to a poor start seeing as January’s reading was the lowest in more than a year.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR, explained the drop by saying that potential home buyers faced larger than expected obstacles throughout the whole of 2017’s first month. He said, “The significant shortage of listings last month along with deteriorating affordability as the result of higher home prices and mortgage rates kept many would-be buyers at bay. Buyer traffic is easily outpacing seller traffic in several metro areas and is why homes are selling at a much faster rate than a year ago.”
To put it simply, there are not very many houses up on the market at the present moment, and those that are on the market are towards the higher end of the price spectrum. So while there are plenty of potential home buyers out there, not all of them can afford the houses that are currently on the market. Despite this, the NAR is still confident that 2017 will be a solid year for the real estate market.
Precious metals were gaining in the lead-up to the report’s release, but did not receive much of a boost once the disappointing data was dealt. This is likely due to the fact that even with January’s poor reading, most are expecting the data to improve as we move forward through the year.
Wrap-Up
As we look ahead to the rest of the week, you can expect that there will be more and more economic data dealt. In addition to that, Trump’s tax plans will be discussed, as will any developments in the French presidential race. Precious metals are still in the driving seat and inching forward, though there is no saying how the upcoming batches of economic data might impact that.
