Gold Spot Price Open: $1,188
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,190
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$2
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.72
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.76
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.04
Gold and silver recovered from multi-month lows recorded on Wednesday, but gains were mostly kept to a minimum on bets that interest rates may be increased sometime in the near future. When all was said and done, gold managed to gain about 2 dollars while silver improved to the tune of about 4 pennies. Platinum and palladium finished the day having not moved very far from where they began the day.
Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Rise
Giving gold and silver a bit of a boost while simultaneously pulling the Dollar off of its recent upward trend was news released late in the morning that last week’s weekly jobless claims rose by an unexpected tick. Totaling at just over 280,000 last week, jobless claims in the United States came back a good 10,000 higher than what was expected. Officially, market experts were forecasting a jobless claims tally of right around 271,000, which would have kept the streak of upbeat weekly jobless claims going.
Thanks to this news, the US Dollar retreated from a near 13-year high against the Japanese Yen. Though the greenback did finish the day having posted losses, it is still in a good position overall, especially with all these worries stemming from the situation involving Greece.
As it stands right now, people are once again becoming convinced that raised interest rates are on their way and will be here before long. According to Omar Esiner, a leading market analyst, “The tone in U.S. economic numbers is improving. This reminds investors U.S. rates are moving up later this year and has revived the dollar’s appeal since last week.” Though the Dollar suffered a bit of a setback today, I would not be at all surprised to see it continue to venture forward through the last parts of the week.
Greece, IMF, EU Remain in Spotlight
All this week and for the better part of the past few months, we have consistently had our attention drawn to what is unfolding across Europe. With Greece unable to make loan repayments, the entirety of the EU is now worried that the Mediterranean country’s days as a member of the EU are numbered. At this point, it is quite difficult to tell exactly how the negotiations are going. At one turn, we hear that a deal is on the verge of being reached, while a few minutes later you will hear rumors of the ECB and IMF planning how Greece’s exit from the EU will go.
It is impossible to say how these negotiations play out, but there is some persistent rumor which holds that a deal between Greece and its debtors will be reached by the end of the weekend. With May being the unofficial deadline for a deal to be reached, this weekend will prove to be the most pivotal in recent history for Greece. After all, the Greek government did come out this week and make it clear that further debt payments are not going to be honored due to a lack of cash.
Wrap-Up
Heading into the final day of the week, it will be truly interesting to see what happens with the Greek debt talks. I, personally, am expecting them to reach some sort of last minute deal or extension, though plenty of people think that we may very well see Greece leave the EU before long. This is definitely the biggest issue heading into the weekend is one that will catch the undivided attention of investors everywhere. We will also be paying close attention to the US Dollar in order to see if it is able to recover from minor setbacks suffered today.
