Gold Spot Price Open: $1,286
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,285
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$1
Silver Spot Price Open: $19.98
Silver Spot Price Close: $20.01
Change in Silver Spot Price:+$0.03
Gold and silver were stagnant for most of the day on Monday, thanks to a mostly firmer US Dollar Index. At the end of the day gold lost just about a single dollar while silver managed to pick up about three pennies.
All weekend investors and market watchers alike eagerly awaited this Monday’s Chinese GDP report. After a sub-par Consumer Price Index (CPI) report last week, many were expecting the same kind of results as far as the world’s second strongest economy’s GDP was concerned. Such was not the case, however, as China’s annual GDP rose by 7.5%, a number that was more or less what market experts had expected. While annual GDP was on the rise, the second quarter of 2013 was the second consecutive quarter where Chinese GDP fell. In addition to this, Chinese industrial output rose by nearly 9% in June, a number that was just barely lower than expectations. Though Chinese economic data has been somewhat poor as of late, when you look at the grand scheme of things the Chinese economy is still doing much better than many other major economies of the world, specifically European economies.
As we progress into the meat and potatoes of the week, investor and market watcher attention will shift to the US Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, and his address to the House of Representatives which is scheduled for this Wednesday. The main topics of conversation for Bernanke will be both the future and current status of monetary policy in the US as well as the current state of the United States economy. Keeping in line with recent history, any remarks made by Bernanke will likely have some sort of effect on the spot value of gold and silver. Whether that effect will be a positive or negative one is yet to be seen, however. At this point the popular thought is that the Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing program will be brought to an end by the conclusion of the 2013 year, but nothing is set in stone as of yet.
We will also keep our eyes on the civil unrest in Egypt, as that situation seems to be far from over.
