Gold Spot Price Open: $1,448
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,430
Change in Gold Spot Price:-$18
Silver Spot Price Open: $23.87
Silver Spot Price Close: $23.68
Change in Silver Spot Price:-$0.19
Gold and silver both started the week on a melancholy note as both metals posted decent losses on Monday. Gold was down closer to 20 dollars while silver was down about 19 cents.
The US dollar hit a four year high against the Japanese Yen on Monday which immediately put downward pressure on precious metals before Monday’s trading even got underway in the US. The Japanese’s aggressive monetary easing policies have caused the Yen to hit historic lows while at the same time pushing the dollar upward.
Sticking to stories about the US dollar, there have been rumors circulating that the Fed might put an end to its current Quantitative Easing program. The bond-buying measure which accounts for about $80 billion worth of purchased bonds every month has been doing a decent job of keeping the US dollar undervalued by pumping money into the economy, but many feel that the time has come for it to be put to rest. With that being said, there is no real evidence behind these rumors and to this point no one from the Fed has announced any sort of timeline for how and when the bond-buying program will be put to an end, if it is going to be put to an end at all.
In other news, Chinese industrial output for April came in weaker than expected which gives more credence to the idea that the world’s second most powerful economy may be cooling off. The actual numbers were up by about 9.3% which was two tenths of a percentage point worse than what was predicted. In most circles an almost ten percent increase in industrial output would be positive news, but China has to live up to high expectations that it has set for itself, something it has not been doing lately.
While the losses incurred by precious metals today are worth paying attention to, they are by no means insurmountable in the coming few days. It has been a back and forth battle with the US dollar as of late and investors are hoping that the dollar will cool off in order to give gold and silver room to make some lasting, positive gains.
