Gold Spot Price Open: $1,391
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,412
Change in Gold Spot Price:+$21
Silver Spot Price Open: $22.33
Silver Spot Price Close: $22.76
Change in Silver Spot Price:+$0.43
Gold and silver kicked off the first full week of June in positive fashion as both metals made substantial gains, starting in the early morning hours and continuing throughout the rest of the day. When all was said and done gold had picked up about 21 dollars while silver’s gains were closing in on 50 cents.
The USD faced some heavy downward pressure due to some sub-par manufacturing data which was minor at first, but turned into a bit of a downward spiral as the day moved on. Since the value of the dollar has been reluctant to drop lately, investors will jump on gold whenever the greenback hits a bump in the road like it did today.
The main story of the day was that Japan’s Nikkei Index continues to fall. Last week we saw it lose over 10% and while that caught the marketplace off guard, many people thought that Japanese stocks would bounce right back at the beginning of this week. Instead, the unexpected happened and in the overnight and early morning hours on Monday the Nikkei Index fell further. Now, Japanese stocks have lost about 17% of their value in a time-span of under two weeks. This current lack of form prompted market experts to start thinking that perhaps the surge in Japanese stocks that we have witnessed over the past month or so has come to a final end. We will be keeping our eyes on Japan and all of Asia in the next few days to see if this thought can be either confirmed or denied by the action of the Nikkei Index and Japanese currency.
Europe, on Monday, reported that the eurozone’s Purchasing Managers Index was up in May when compared to April, but overall still disappointing. The actual PMI rose to about 48.3 in May, but any number under 50 alludes to the fact that the economy in question may be contracting, or is in the perfect situation to contract. Despite the negative PMI number, some people believe that the 1.5 increase from April to May indicates that the worst is possibly over for Europe. Do not get too excited, however, because we have been thinking that the worst is over for Europe for some time now.
This week is going to feature limited economic reports from around the world, and the only ones we will really be keeping our eyes on will be announced on Thursday and Friday respectively. In the meantime it would be suitable for precious metals if the Nikkei Index and USD continue to decline in value.
