Gold Spot Price Open: $1,316
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,336
Change in Gold Spot Price: +$20
Silver Spot Price Open: $20.79
Silver Spot Price Close: $21.40
Change in Silver Spot Price:+$0.61
Gold and silver ended last week on a positive note, and that is exactly how they started this week. After declining a bit from daily high’s, precious metals were still able to make impressive gains with gold picking up about 20 dollars while silver gained roughly a penny over 60 cents.
Last week’s positive economic data from China helped boost the Chinese stock market considerably on Monday. The news, which broke early last week, was that Chinese imports and exports for the July of 2013 had risen by much more than what was anticipated. On the year, Chinese imports grew by 11% from last July, while exports rose by around 5%.
Also in the news around China was the fact that the government’s monetary authority is mulling over ideas for a fresh stimulus package for the Asian giant. If China employs monetary policies which even come close to resembling those of the US, this story will be transformed from mildly bullish for precious metals to entirely bullish. In other news, the Japanese Nikkei Index was hit fairly hard thanks, in large part, to weaker economic data.
The European nation of Greece made headlines on Monday thanks to yet another report indicating that the Greek economy has stagnated for yet another quarter. Over the past 6 years the Greek economy has been one of the worst in all of Europe and it seems as though the tough times are going to continue. When asked about the possibility of a financial bailout plan for Greece, German authorities stated that they would be in direct opposition to such a proposal. Their reasoning for wanting to deny Greece a bailout plan is not so much malicious as it is an attempt to avoid pumping massive quantities of cash into a failing economic system. At this point, it seems as though Greece is in need of a complete overhaul of their economic system much more than they are in need of cash.
A higher US Dollar Index was seen throughout the day, though it did not hurt the spot value of gold all too much. The fact that gold and silver were able to make such impressive Monday gains despite a stronger Dollar is causing general confidence in commodities, especially precious metals, to rise.
