Gold Spot Price Open: $1,136
Gold Spot Price Close: $1,126
Change in Gold Spot Price: -$10
Silver Spot Price Open: $14.72
Silver Spot Price Close: $14.75
Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.03
Precious metals posted mixed results on Thursday but were spending most of the day in the red thanks to a stronger US Dollar and some stronger equities. When all was said and done, gold lost about ten dollars while silver managed to eek out gains of about three pennies. After gaining on Wednesday, both platinum and palladium lost somewhere in the neighborhood of ten dollars apiece.
Euro Falls on Draghi Comments
Apart from our recent focus on Greece’s many financial and economic problems, the spotlight has mostly been away from the European Union and the euro currency in general. Today, that changed thanks to comments from the European Central Bank alluding that ongoing economic stimulus may be both beefed up and extended before too long. ECB President Mario Draghi, in fact, pledged that the two aforementioned actions would be taken towards current economic stimulus measures. Coming on the back of a disappointing growth forecast, it is still quite clear that the EU economy is not quite out of the woods yet.
Draghi maintained that there are no concrete plans to beef up current stimulus measures, but he did pledge to do exactly that if conditions permit. Thanks to the possibility of even looser monetary policies across the EU, the euro currency took a hit today and ended the trading session with losses of about 1%. Against the USD, the euro is currently sitting at a two-week low.
As we look ahead to the final day of the week, it is likely that attention will continue to be placed on monetary policies as the US Labor Department is set to release its non-farms payrolls report from the month of August. If tomorrow’s data comes back overly upbeat, or even in line with expectations, the prevailing belief is that there is no way interest rates will not be risen this month. Of course, there is no way of actually knowing what the Fed is planning on doing, but this is the last big report before the FOMC’s meeting in less than two weeks, so it will carry an especially heavy weight for global investors. As it stands now, the market does seem convinced that we will see rates hiked for the first time in 6 weeks by the end of this month, but there are plenty of others who think we are still a month or two away from hiked rates.
Gold, Silver Hold Positions Before Jobs Data
Gold, though having incurred losses of about ten dollars today, did not do much moving as investors await tomorrow’s jobs report before making any lasting investing decisions. For now, precious metals seem to be stuck in a state of limbo of sorts, with nothing really going in their favor, and not all that much working against them.
When it comes down to it, precious metals investors really want to find out for sure what is going to be happening to interest rates. If they are raised like so many people think they will be, spot values are going to continue having a difficult time moving forward because higher interest rates mean that investors will seek interest-bearing assets as opposed to seeking safe-haven in gold and silver. If tomorrow’s jobs report comes back weaker than expected and the Fed then decides to leave interest rates put, spot values may receive a bit of a boost. With that being said, however, I cannot foresee any gains on the part of gold and silver being anything other than temporary because even though rates may not be risen this month, the market is convinced that, almost wholly so, that rates will be risen before the end of the year.
Wrap-Up
Looking ahead to the last day of the week, the biggest piece of news will come in the form of August’s non-farm payrolls report. This piece of data is important every month, but with interest rate hikes potentially on the horizon it is even more important. Other pieces of economic data are going to trickle tomorrow and early next week, but this non-farms report will likely trump them all.