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    JM Bullion Gold and Silver Market Update (4/6/17)

    Gold Spot Price Open: $1,250

    Gold Spot Price Close: $1,254

    Change in Gold Spot Price: +$4

    Silver Spot Price Open: $18.29

    Silver Spot Price Close: $18.24

    Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.05

    Precious metals have spent most of the day on Thursday adding value despite some factors suggesting that, perhaps, the opposite should happen. When all was said and done, gold ended up adding about 4 dollars while silver ended up losing closer to 5 cents. Platinum and palladium fell on the day, but as has been the case recently, neither metal fell by all that much.

    Weekly Jobless Claims Fall Dramatically

    Though you would expect gold and silver spot values to have fallen off dramatically in the wake of the report, spot values managed to hold their own after it was announced that first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell dramatically. In fact, According to the US Department of Labor, last week saw 25,000 fewer first-time claims for unemployment benefit than was recorded the week before. This astonishingly large tally brought the seasonally-adjusted average number of claims down to just over 230,000; extending the long streak of weeks where the seasonally-adjusted average has remained underneath the 300,000 mark.

    Being that expectations were for the seasonally-adjusted average number of claims to be up above 250,000, it is interesting to see such a large miss. Despite what you might think, today’s jobless claims data did very little in the way of moving markets. Precious metals, in particular, ignored today’s data and managed to hang on to recent gains.

    Inconsistent Stocks Aid Metals

    Even though most US stock indexes concluded Thursday higher, it is no secret that they have been wobbly at best in recent weeks. Since Donald Trump took office, stocks could do almost no wrong. Since then, however, we have seen equity markets cool off considerably. This continued cool-off of sorts is what is helping keep precious metals spot values elevated, Put simply, investors are worried that most major stock indexes are just around the corner from a sizeable downward correction.

    This alone is preventing folks from being too keen on equity investments, and is keeping safe-haven demand for precious metals alive. As we look to what the rest of the week has in store for stocks, this is something that will be determined by the tone of the employment data that will be dealt on Friday. If it is shown that March was a great month for employment growth, I would not be surprised to see stocks move even higher.

    Weekly Jobless Claims Eyed

    As is the case during the first week of trading, investors are gearing up for the release of the non-farms employment report from the United States. With the ADP report having been released on Wednesday and having shown some impressive growth in the private-sector, we are already seeing people put forth some lofty expectations with regard to what they expect to see from the non-farms data.

    At this juncture, any above-average employment report is going to be viewed as reason for the Fed to move on hiking interest rates again sooner than later. A weak report that does not live up to expectations, however, might cause investors to believe that perhaps the Fed should hold off on rate hikes for the time being.

    Wrap-Up

    As we look ahead to the final day of the week, the main focus for investors of all types will be the release of the non-farms data. Other than that, we will be looking at how investors react to the aforementioned data. Naturally, the tone of the report and reaction will inevitably determine how precious metals finish out the week.

    Disclaimer: All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.

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