Gold Spot Price Open: $1,177
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,173
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$4
Silver Spot Price Open: $16.23
Silver Spot Price Close: $16.17
Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.06
Gold and silver inched downward for yet another consecutive day this week as both metals continue to be in pretty rough shape. When all was said and done, gold lost about 4 dollars while silver declined by little more than 5 cents. Platinum and palladium’s losses were also fairly small, at about three dollars apiece.
Jobs Data Handily Beats Market Expectations
For most of this trading week, the focus of investors has been on the employment report expected to be released by the US Labor Department today. With interest rate hikes widely expected by many, this week’s report has been touted as being one of the most important pieces of economic data in recent history. In the lead-up to today’s data release, market experts that were polled made it clear that they expected to see about 225,000 non-farm payrolls added to the economy during the month of May. Unfortunately, those expectations took a bit of a hit on Wednesday when it was reported that the ADP employment report from may showed an increase in jobs of only a little more than 200,000.
By 11AM this morning, investors the world over were taken aback somewhat due to the fact that more than 280,000 non-farm payrolls were created during the month of May. As you probably could have guessed, this news sent the Dollar surging forward while simultaneously delivering a bit of a hit to US treasuries. For gold and silver, the report was mostly a non-factor but definitely ensured that any price action today would be in the downward direction.
Not only is May’s job growth the best we have seen in almost half a year, it was reported that wages are starting to grow as well. For a very long time over the course of the past year, surging employment numbers have been somewhat undercut by the fact that wage growth was remaining stagnant. Now that we are seeing this crucial statistic improve, the belief that interest rate hikes will take place in the near future is one that many people are beginning to wholeheartedly subscribe to.
Greece Misses IMF Payment
Like most people expected, Greece missed their debt repayment to the IMF today, opting instead to bunch all of their June payments into one large payment. Of course, to many people this is nothing more than a move to stall a now unavoidable exit from the European Union. For gold and silver, this is a situation that continues to soften the blow delivered by other market factors. Going forward, we very well might see Greece’s persistent existence in the headlines pay off for precious metals investors. At present, however, that is not really playing out.
Sean Lusk of Walsh Trading made it clear that he is even skeptical that Greece will be able to pick spot values up. He said, “The market will have its eye on the Greece debt debacle and the ever growing drama there, whether though that ignites some safe haven covering remains to be seen.”
Wrap-Up
As far as gold and silver are concerned, this week is another lost one. Losses have piled up for a majority of the trading sessions this week and, though losses have not been significant in nature, they are by no means negligible. At present, far too many market factors are stacked up against gold and silver, but especially the growing belief that interest rate hikes are right around the corner. As we look ahead to next week, we are one step closer to this month’s FOMC meeting, which is arguably the biggest happening of June.
