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    JM Bullion Gold and Silver Market Update (8/23/16)

    Gold Spot Price Open: $1,341

    Gold Spot Price Close: $1,341

    Change in Gold Spot Price: NO CHANGE

    Silver Spot Price Open: $18.95

    Silver Spot Price Close: $18.82

    Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.13

    Precious metals did decently on Tuesday, and when I say decently I am essentially saying that they did not lose all that much more ground. When all was said and done, gold lost a single dollar while silver ended up losing a little more than ten cents. Platinum and palladium also gained on the day, but neither metal was able to pick up much more than a few dollars.

    US Home Sales Data Impresses

    Perhaps the ground picked up by metals would have been a bit more pronounced had today’s US home sales data not been released. According to the US Commerce Department, July saw sales of new homes improve by more than 12% from June. This brings the annualized number of home sales up above the 650,000 mark. What’s more, today’s data handily beat expectations, which called for a rise of new home sales of less than 10%. The monetary policy hawks, or those people that would like to see interest rates raised sooner rather than later, loved today’s data as it seemingly lends itself to the Fed acting before this year is through.

    The news on the home sales data front was not all great, however, as June’s total new home sales were revised down by nearly 10,000 units. All in all, however, the housing market in the US is strong and continues to gain strength. This has long been one of the shining aspects of the US economy and there is not much out there to suggest that this might change anytime soon.

    Metals Initially Up on Bargain-Hunting After Losses

    While bargain-hunting initially helped precious metals jump out of the gate on Tuesday, stronger equities from Europe and elsewhere around the world ended up turning what could have been decent gains into ones we will soon forget. The EuroZone was given an upbeat PMI reading from July, and this was quite unexpected by most accounts. This drove European equities upward and ended up pressuring gold and silver spot values a bit. Immediately, the boost from bargain-hunting was already detracted from.

    Crude oil was down again on Tuesday, and this too did not lend itself to spot values making gains. It seems as though anytime gold and silver have been positioned to advance over the past few weeks, bearish outside markets prevent spot values from venturing too far forward.

    Other than these few spatterings of economic data from the US and Europe, Tuesday was yet another quieter day. In fact, we anticipate that the marketplace will remain quiet through the rest of the week and likely through next week as well. With many North Americans and Europeans spending the last few weeks of summer on vacation, the global marketplace is, in all likelihood, going to remain mostly dead.

    Wrap-Up

    Looking ahead to the last three days of the week, it goes without saying that the eyes of the investing world are on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where some of the world’s top central bankers are meeting to discuss policy, the global economy, and many other hot topics. Taking top-billing at this week’s symposium is a speech expected to be delivered by Fed chair Janet Yellen on Friday. Though the exact contents of her speech are not readily known, investors are hoping that in one way or another Yellen provides some sort of insight as to what the future holds for interest rates. In all reality, however, it is not likely that Yellen will tell the global marketplace anything that it does not already know. As such, I am anticipating that her remarks will be a highly anticipated miss more than anything else.

    Disclaimer: All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.

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