Gold Spot Price Open: $1,263
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,269
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$6
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.59
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.62
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.03
Metals remained mostly stagnant throughout the early morning hours on Monday as the marketplace slowly but surely gears up for this week’s European Central Bank meeting. When all was said and done, gold managed to pick up little more than 5 dollars while silver appreciated by close to five cents. Platinum and palladium did not have such a quiet start to the week, as both metals picked up close to twenty dollars apiece.
Profit-Taking Limits Metals’ Upside
After last week’s solid gains both gold and silver opened up this week suffering from some mild profit-taking. Even despite this profit-taking we are seeing both gold and silver holding their positions right around last Friday’s 13-month high. It is still clear to see that gold/silver bulls are in control of the marketplace and are looking like they will be on the receiving end of additional boosts this week.
I say this because the European Central Bank is holding their monthly policy meeting on Thursday and it is widely expected that further monetary easing measures will come as a result. If this does prove to be the case you can expect that gold and silver will have more room to venture forward. Also beginning the week suffering from some profit-taking are global equities, of which also had a pretty solid week last week.
As we head further into this 5-day trading session it will be interesting to see what is in store for gold and silver. For now, metals are in possession of a near-term technical advantage, but we all know that that much can change in a very short period of time. Apart from the ECB meeting, however, investors will not have much in the way of fresh economic data to mull over.
Global Economy Kills US Exports
A report released recently explained that the United States’ trade deficit widened by considerable margins to open up the New Year. According to the figures, exports from the US lagged to a more than a 5 and a half year low thanks to weak demand for US goods from other countries around the world.
According to the Commerce Department towards the end of last week, the US trade gap widened by more than 2% to start off the new year. With the way the global economy has been performing recently this news is not all that surprising. As countries like China, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain all continue to suffer economic slowdowns, it will be difficult to envision a scenario where exports pick up too dramatically.
For the US in January, it wasn’t just one export that lagged behind, but rather most every export. Food exports, for example, fell to a low that we have not seen since the end of 2010. Industrial exports also fell to more than a 5-year low. The one bright spot of the export data was automobile exports, which hit an all-time high during January. It will be interesting to see, as the global economy remains weak, what kind of impact this will end up having on the US economy.
Wrap-Up
All in all, this week got off to a slow start thanks to investors mostly holding their positions ahead of what will end up being an incredibly important ECB meeting this week. It will be interesting to see if, as so many people believe, any sort of changes to monetary policy will come as a result of this week’s ECB meeting. Other than that, there really isn’t much else for investors to focus on apart from the weekly jobless claims report, which seems to grow increasingly important with each passing week.
