Gold Spot Price Open: $1,593
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,589
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $29.29
Silver Spot Price Close: $28.96
Change in Silver Spot Price:-$0.33
If yesterday’s finishing numbers had you thinking that gold might have a rally this week, Wednesday’s numbers were a bit sobering. When all was said and done gold had backtracked to the tune of about 4 dollars while silver lost a little over 30 cents.
Part of the reason gold had a drawback of a day today was due to better than anticipated numbers from US consumers this past February. Retail numbers were up a little over a percentage point which in turn prompted US stocks to have a good day which typically means that precious metals will suffer to some extent. If retail sales continue to improve throughout the duration of 2013, it would not be surprising if the Federal Reserve began to switch their stance on monetary policy. If anything changes as far as monetary policy goes it will likely be moves to strengthen the dollar which is always going to be bad for precious metals.
Factory output numbers over the beginning months of 2013 have declined in Europe, but this comes as no surprise as most significant economic numbers are on a decline in the region. An upcoming sale of bonds in Italy will be closely hawked over by investors as a way to gauge how investors in the Euro region are feeling about the Italian economy. The recent elections did little to move investors one way or another which means there will be added emphasis on this auction. A two-year note auction in Germany showed that maybe not all is lost as yields were better than most had anticipated, even if by only a little more than half a percentage point.
Stay tuned for more news this week as investors hope there is a breakthrough to help push the yellow metal past the ever-elusive $1,600 mark.
