Gold Spot Price Open: $1,334
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,326
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$8
Silver Spot Price Open: $21.43
Silver Spot Price Close: $21.25
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.18
Gold and silver were feeling more pressure today and ended up closing out the week on a somewhat disappointing note. When all was said and done on Friday, gold lost about 8 dollars while silver lost closer to 20 cents. For the week, both metals ended slightly lower than where they opened up.
There were a few factors working against gold and silver today, most notably a small batch of upbeat US economic data. Today, US equities were boosted by a better than expected Chicago business activity index and rising consumer sentiment. Despite finishing lower today, spot gold will finish February up 6%.
Two members of the Fed were quoted today, saying that they still maintain their positive expectations with regard to US economic growth in 2014, despite the recent run of sub-par economic data we saw over the course of the past month or so. St. Louis Federal Reserve president, James Bullard, echoed other members of the Fed by maintaining his positive outlook on the US economy for this year as well.
In other news from around the world, Ukraine is still seeing a large amount of civil unrest, especially in the Crimea region populated mostly by ethnic Russians. Fears with regard to possible Russian military intervention in the region are circulating in the wake of reports that armed men took over two of the Crimea region’s airports. Russian military personnel denied allegations that they were involved, though much of the world still has their doubts. So long as Ukraine is teetering on the brink of collapse, safe-haven demand for precious metals will undoubtedly continue to remain fairly strong. With that being said, however, there are a number of market experts who are beginning to believe that safe-haven demand alone will not be enough to keep gold and silver trending positively.
