Gold Spot Price Open: $1,203
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,188
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$15
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.09
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.87
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.22
After yesterday’s minor upswing, precious metals suffered pretty hefty losses on Wednesday to close the day near multi-week lows. When all was said and done, gold lost about fifteen dollars while silver’s losses were just over 20 cents. Platinum and palladium both took beatings today too, with respective losses of roughly $20 and $15.
US Housing Data Comes Back Far Better Than Expected
After the recent run of poor and neutral economic reports from the United States, it was about time an upbeat piece of data came from the central part of North America. Today, it was reported that existing home sales in March rose on an annualized basis at the fastest rate we have seen in more than a year. As a result of this data, the USD Index was able to shoot upward despite mostly trading sideways to begin the day. Of course, as expected, gold and silver spot values were forced into even steeper losses by the mid-afternoon.
As you probably could have guessed, this small bit of data also only adds fuel to the speculation fire regarding interest rate hikes. Today’s existing homes sales data undoubtedly lends itself to the idea that interest rates will be hiked sooner rather than later in the United States.
All Eyes on the Fed
Though the meeting itself is still about 7 days away, investors cannot help but wonder what next week’s FOMC meeting has in store for them. Just today, a report by Jon Hilsenrath of the Wall Street Journal said that the hiking of interest rates in the United States by the Fed will depend on just two things–global economic growth, and the strength of the US Dollar. A member of the Fed from Boston more or less reiterated Hilsenrath’s claims in an address made on Wednesday.
Even though this has been the case for some time now, investors will continue to keep close tabs on the Dollar and what it does on a day to day basis. Despite a recent bit of stagnation, the Dollar has fared well through the first almost 5 months of the year and is expected to continue doing well as we head further into Spring and into the Summer. For the Euro, which is just barely keeping itself above the USD, this is not good news at all as some experts think the Dollar will overtake the currency before too long.
Wrap-Up
The marketplace is still keeping an eye on Greek debt negotiations, but between yesterday and today not much has changed. Greece remains stuck in a difficult place and is on the defensive against what is looking like an unavoidable cash crunch. The situation for Greece is of great concern for investors, but has really so far failed to generate much of any movement from the investing world. As we move to the last two days of the week, I am sure we will hear a bit more about what exactly is going on between members of the Greek government and the IMF/EU.