Gold Spot Price Open: $1,378
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,369
Change in Gold Spot Price:-$9
Silver Spot Price Open: $22.55
Silver Spot Price Close: $22.28
Change in Silver Spot Price:-$0.19
Gold and silver both ended Wednesday on disappointing notes as both metals posted losses for yet another day. When all was said and done gold lost about 11 dollars while silver losses were closing in on 20 cents.
The main piece of news for the day was Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke’s speech to congress about the current state of the economy as well as the future of monetary policy in the United States. Throughout the duration of Bernanke’s speech to Congress he made it seem as though he was in favor of a continuation of the Fed’s current Quantitative Easing program, though when he was asked about it he made the announcement that it could be wound down as early as the next few Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
This means that we could see QE in the United States significantly changed by the end of the summer. Though Bernanke kind of pulled us in both directions as far as QE is concerned, the marketplace placed heavier weight on the fact that the chairman alluded to the fact that monetary easing will be ended sooner rather than later.
When investors first heard that Bernanke’s prepared speech was in favor of a continuation of QE gold picked up some of its losses, though when it was all said and done those losses were once again realized as the winding down of monetary easing was always going to be bearish for precious metals.
The US Dollar did better on Wednesday as well which made it even harder for precious metals to gain any sort of foothold today.
Since Japan, with its surging stock market and collapsing currency have been in the news a lot lately, many thought that a meeting of their central bank might have some implications on gold and silver, but such was not the case. Instead, no major policy changes were announced and because of this the Yen continued to fall in value.
There are still two days left in the week though with the news stories we have witnessed through the first three days, it is unlikely that gold will be able to make any sort of a solid comeback before the week’s end.
