Gold Spot Price Open: $1,361
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,331
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$30
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.91
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.67
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.24
A lack of any new bullish factors weighed on spot gold and silver for a third consecutive day Wednesday. When all was said and done, gold lost about 30 dollars while silver declined by just shy of a quarter.
After last week’s impressive gains, it is almost shocking to see that precious metals are already back to ground zero so to speak. That being said, it begins to make sense seeing that tensions in Ukraine or on the decline and the Fed further reduced Quantitative Easing today. The FOMC, who decided to cut QE by another $10 billion, also indicated that the US’ main interest rate will likely be raised by next year. If interest rates do rise, this will spell even more bad news for precious metals in the long-run.
Adding to the pressure pushing spot gold and silver downward today was a stronger US Dollar. If precious metals do not find any bullish data to latch onto soon, growing investor risk-appetite will threaten spot values even further.
Rounding off news for today was a rumor making rounds claiming that yet another Chinese company is going to default on bond payments. While rumors such as this do not tend to be taken seriously, investors are jittery about the Chinese financial system after the first Chinese company ever defaulted on bond payments a few weeks ago. Add these jitters to ongoing worries about the strength of the Chinese economy and it is easy to see why a growing number of investors are keeping their distance from the world’s second largest economy.
The EU and the United States are both being pressured by the international community to be tougher on Russia in light of its plans to officially annex Crimea. Though sanctions have been placed on individual Russian bank accounts, many feel as though Obama is being too soft on Putin. The crisis in Ukraine is sitting on the back burner for the moment, but is still far from resolved and may escalate without much of any warning.
