Precious metals are holding at near even to slightly lower levels on Wednesday amid a market atmosphere that is subdued to say the least. In general, this week is not set to bring about too much in the way of markets-moving economic data, and that alone is what is making this week so boring for so many investors.
There were a few geopolitical developments reported yesterday and earlier today, but they are only providing precious metals with a little bit of support. On the whole, surging US stocks are continuing to limit the buying interest in precious metals.
Interest In Precious Metals Waning
Today saw spot gold sink to its lowest point in 2 months as the metal, along with silver and platinum, is not receiving all that much in the way of investor attention. Despite many people thinking that metals were bound for a rally in the next two or three weeks, it is now becoming clear that the prospect of precious metals as an alternative investment is simply not an attractive one for investors at present. Instead, interest has been firmly planted on US equity markets as well as the US Dollar.
Just two days ago, the S&P 500 crossed over the 2,000 threshold for the first time in its history. It has since been able to keep its head at or above that level, while other stock indexes follow suit. Today saw the USD index decline a bit, but in general, the US Dollar has been making consistent gains over the past few weeks or so. With so much interest being placed on US equities, there really isn’t much room for gold and silver to make gains. Making matters worse is the fact that all of these losses are piling up at a time of year where the market is very subdued in nature. If investors return from their vacations during early September and also want out of the precious metals market, there is no saying when the end of the decline will be for spot values.
There are a few ongoing geopolitical events providing a bit of support for metals from time to time, but these events frequently drift in and out of the headlines. Just this week, a day full of tensions between Russian and Ukraine saw precious metals spot values tick up a bit, but by the next day things were right back to where they were before the market concerned itself with the matters in Eastern Europe.
While there is no real way of telling where the spot values of precious metals will head in the coming weeks, it is clear that we are in the midst of an incredibly interesting market atmosphere. There are a lot of moving parts at present that, as they come together, will help solidify the investing futures for many many people. Until then, however, we and the rest of the investing world can only sit back and speculate with regard to what the future holds for gold, silver, US interest rates, the EU economy, and the plethora of other issues circulating about the world marketplace.