Gold Spot Price Open: $1,261
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,270
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$9
Silver Spot Price Open: $17.33
Silver Spot Price Close: $17.41
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.06
Precious metals spot values bounced around a bit on Wednesday but ended the day having posted decent gains. When all was said and done, gold gained just shy of ten dollars while silver managed to add around 6 cents. Platinum and palladium both gained about 5 dollars today.
Employment Data Comes Into Focus
Like we have been saying all along, this 5-day trading session is going to be slow simply because there isn’t too much in the way of economic data expected to be made public. With that said, however, there are a few key employment reports from the United States that are sure to cause the attention of investors to perk up a bit. Tomorrow will bring about January’s employment report and, by many measures, it is the most important data point of the month. As it stands, market analysts are calling for at least 235,000 non-farm payrolls to have been added to the economy during January.
Today gave way to the ADP employment report for January, and it showed an increase of about 213,000 jobs. This figure was decent, but fell short of expectations that were somewhere in the 225,000 range. As is typical, the market did not really react to the ADP report as much more weight is given to tomorrow’s US Labor Department report.
Chinese Central Bank Makes Surprise Move
During the overnight hours, it was reported that China’s central bank eased its monetary policy by reducing the reserve requirement ratio for Chinese banks. At face value, this move seems surprising, but in reality it is just another central bank easing monetary policy in hopes that it will boost overall economic growth and activity. As is the case anytime China tries to jump start its economy, this news was bullish for gold and silver today.
As we head deeper into 2015, China will remain on the forefront of investor attention for a boatload of reasons. Most importantly, however, will be the continued analysis of China’s factory output as it is a nation known for production. 2014 saw Chinese production slow down considerably and many are hoping for a resurgence this year.
Retail Sales In Europe Rise
No, the world isn’t ending, but we did receive some upbeat news regarding retail sales in Europe. Retail sales across the eurozone rose for a third consecutive month during December; the best rate of growth we have seen in more than a half decade. Year on year, December retail sales improved by nearly 3%.
In other news from Europe, the composite PMI for January was reported as improving significantly from December. Still, despite all of this upbeat news from Europe, the Euro was still seeing some pretty heavy selling pressure throughout the day today.
Wrap-Up
Looking ahead to the last two days of the week, I anticipate that things will remain quiet. The big piece of data on Friday will be the latest US employment report, so I really wouldn’t be surprised to see investors mostly hold their positions before the report is made public.
