Gold Spot Price Open: $1,306
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,297
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$9
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.83
Silver Spot Price Close: $19.57
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.26
Gold and silver more or less returned yesterday’s gains on a day where US economic data had a much larger affect on the marketplace than anyone originally anticipated. When all was said and done on Thursday, gold lost about 9 dollars while silver lost a little more than 25 cents.
Today marked the release of the latest weekly jobless claims report, a report that showed the lowest number of weekly jobless claims in more than a year. The latest US consumer price index showed little movement while the latest US manufacturing survey painted an upbeat picture of the US manufacturing sector. This news, when taken altogether, ended up putting a good amount of downward pressure on precious metals today.
US stocks were also trading down considerably for a large part of the day. With all this risk-aversion, it is incredibly interesting to see spot values decline like they did today. Some market analysts are pointing at the growing deflationary concerns in Europe and possibility of new monetary stimulus as reasons for the risk aversion, but this is merely speculation.
Finally, the EU reported that GDP growth for 2014’s first quarter came in at only about .2%. While any GDP increase is welcomed, experts were expecting to see about twice as much growth in this year’s first quarter.
As we head into the final day of the week, investor attention will once again be placed upon the ongoing crisis in Ukraine as it is still far from resolved. Western officials are continuing to pile the pressure on Russia, urging them to play their part in resolving the crisis peacefully. Up to this point, Russia has done nothing other than provoke Ukraine and encourage pro-Russian rebels.
