Gold Spot Price Open: $1,192
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,193
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.80
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.82
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.02
Precious metals got the day off to a fast start, but cooled off by the time markets closed for the day. When all was said and done, gold managed to gain about 2 dollars while silver gained a few pennies. Platinum and palladium both also posted gains, but their gains were a bit muted.
Greek Worries Continue to Persist
For much of the last few weeks, we haven’t been able to keep from talking about Greece and their many financial and economic problems. When we headed into last weekend, the market was holding their breath as Greek, IMF, and EU negotiators headed into a crucial weekend of talks. Now that the weekend has passed, it is safe to say that these talks, like most in recent history, did not yield much of any progress.
Now, with Greece facing a more than $325 million repayment to the IMF on Friday, it will be interesting to see what happens. Widespread belief at the current moment in time holds that Greece quite simply doesn’t have the funds to cover the payment in full. If this is the case, we may very well soon find out what will happen to the Mediterranean nation. If you can remember, it is widely held that a missed payment on the part of Greece will result in the nation being ousted from the European Union.
As of the writing of this post, gold and silver are receiving a lot of safe-haven support from worries regarding this Greece situation. I imagine that this will continue through the rest of the week barring any unforeseen, last-minute agreement between Greece and its debtors.
US Economic Data Lies Ahead
For investors, the week ahead is incredibly important due to the fact that so much May economic data is expected to be made public. Today we were dealt the latest reading on manufacturing from the United States in May, but the report was deemed to be mostly a miss.
Looking ahead, the eyes of the market are turning towards Wednesday, when the latest employment report from May is due out. May’s non-farm payrolls data will be especially important for any and all investors who are interested in the future of interest rates in the US. If you can remember, last week saw a bit of an attitude shift in that now, more and more investors are growing convinced that rate hikes will take place sometime before the end of the year—most likely sometime this summer.
For gold and silver, it being believed that rate hikes are imminent is not beneficial at all. This is so because higher interest rates mean that investors will naturally be drawn to interest-bearing assets as opposed to safe gold and silver. For now, worries regarding what is taking place across the EU are keeping spot values afloat, but there is no saying how long it will last.
Wrap-Up
Gold and silver have begun this week in impressive fashion, mostly thanks to mounting worries regarding Greece and their debt repayments. As the days move forward and no deal is reached, I expect that gold and silver will only see increased buying support. In addition to continued attention being paid to Greece’s innumerable problems, the marketplace will also have a good amount of economic data to deal with; both from the US and other countries around the world. Of course, as you might expect, the two most important pieces of data will come Wednesday in the form of the non-farms employment data and Thursday in the form of the weekly jobless claims report.