Gold Spot Price Open: $1,220
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,232
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$12
Silver Spot Price Open: $15.03
Silver Spot Price Close: $15.11
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.08
Precious metals rebounded ever so slightly on Tuesday thanks, in part, to some worries regarding the pace of global economic growth. When all was said and done, gold managed to gain little more than 10 dollars while silver added just shy of ten cents. Platinum and palladium finished the day more or less even, with no significant gains or losses to report.
IMF Calls for US to Raise Federal Minimum Wage
The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, is a very powerful organization when it comes to global economics. Today, they attempted to flex their muscle a bit by calling for the US to raise its Federal Minimum wage. This is not the first time the IMF has made such a request to the government of the United States, but it is one of the few times that the request has been paid attention to by the world.
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, made strong comments with regard to the wage situation in the US. She said, “It is no wonder that perceptions abound that the cards are stacked against the common man and woman in favor of elites. The good news is that the recovery continues; we have growth; we are not in a crisis. The not-so-good news is that the recovery remains too slow, too fragile, and risks to its durability are increasing. Certainly, we have made much progress since the great financial crisis, but because growth has been too low for too long, too many people are simply not feeling it.”
Since 2009, the Federal minimum wage has been retained at just $7.25. If you account for inflation, the minimum wage now is 19% weaker than it was in 1980. This is not a new topic as people have been calling for a minimum wage increase for years, but when people begin to look at just how dire the situation is for some workers in the supposed greatest economy in the world, one cannot help but scratch their head in confusion. It will be interesting to see if, under the new president next Fall, if any changes are made to the current minimum wage.
Stocks Fall on Global Growth Worries
Stocks in the US followed the lead of European and Asian equities and moved downward on the day. Naturally, this prompted gold and silver to be able to make some nice gains and regain a bit of what has been lost over the past few weeks. Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if stocks bounce back, or if persistent worries relating to the strength of the global economy will keep equities subdued.
European stocks were hurt by Germany announcing that manufacturing orders fell in February by more than 1%. Expectations were for a small tick upward on the part of this data point, so that was viewed as particularly disappointing. The US services sector also reported some poor news from the first-quarter, and with the US being a largely service-based economy, news such as this is never going to help stocks.
Wrap-Up
For gold and silver, today was the perfect day to regain some foothold after suffering loss after loss over the past few weeks. Whether we see buying interest continue into the mid and latter parts of the week remains to be seen, but the fact of the matter is that metals investors will take anything they can get right now. You can expect for the rest of the week that the economic data will continue to stream in from all over the world, which is sure to impact spot values to some degree.
