Gold Spot Price Open: $1,214
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,208
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$6
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.66
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.62
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.04
Precious metals spent most of the day conceding value, but thanks to a few developments during the day, losses were muted to an extent. When all was said and done, gold lost about 6 dollars while silver lost four cents. Platinum and palladium traded even for most of the day, but palladium managed to finish having made gains of close to ten dollars on the day.
FOMC Switches Up Stance, Poor Economic Data Cited
Beginning last week, investors the world over became interested in what the Federal Reserve might have to say at their April policy meeting. Though it kicked off on Tuesday, the meeting officially wrapped up this afternoon. Typically, Fed chairperson Janet Yellen answers questions from members of the media in the wake of the meeting, but that did not take place today. Instead, investors had only the post-meeting statement to go off of.
When the dust did finally settle, the post-meeting statement delivered by the Fed is one that indicates the Fed’s changing stance regarding US economic growth. According to the statement, US economic growth is showing some signs of slowing, as indicated by the relatively poor first-quarter we experienced this year. Though investors have not had much of a chance to react to today’s FOMC statement, I imagine that that will change come tomorrow morning. Preliminarily, one is led to believe that the Fed’s changing opinion regarding US economic growth is one that indicates interest rates may stay put for some time to come. For precious metals, this is very much good news.
Tying perfectly into the Fed’s statement today was an economic report released earlier in the morning. The advanced 1st-quarter GDP report from the US showed that growth during the first quarter of this year came in at about .2%. Though it is nice to see the US economic system growing, the .2% rate of growth was more disappointing than anything else. Once again, I am of the opinion that this data bodes well for gold and silver, but we will just have to wait until tomorrow and Friday to find that out for sure.
Some Progress Regarding Greek Debt Talks
For the past few weeks, the marketplace has been very closely monitoring talks that are taking place between Greek government officials and members of both the EU and the International Monetary Fund. The talks, which are aimed at potentially restructuring the way Greece pays back outstanding debts, have not gone well at all. In fact, the most recent development held that EU and IMF officials were focusing more readily on what to do if and when Greece misses a payment, as opposed to actually working on a debt restructuring deal.
Today, however, we were dealt some upbeat news in the form of reports that Greece has completely switched up their negotiating team. Realistically, this move may mean nothing, but Greek bond yields have backed down off recent highs today and that is seen as being slightly encouraging. Still, it seems as though there needs to be a lot of progress made before we can expect to see any results from these talks.
Wrap-Up
Looking ahead to Thursday, I anticipate that the focus for a majority of the investing world will be on delayed reactions to the FOMC meeting. Investors from Europe and Asia did not have a chance to fully react to today’s statement, so I expect that that will consume much of tomorrow’s headlines. It will truly be interesting to see if metals can continue along the upward trend they established through Tuesday, or if today’s small pullback will turn into something more than that.
