December 3rd Midweek Gold Market Update

Gold and silver are beginning the day on Wednesday posting mixed numbers. Through the first two days of this week, both gold and silver have been through quite a bit of price movement. On Monday, metals opened up the day on the up and up and ended the first day of the week having made some decent gains after late last week brought about some hefty losses. Yesterday, however, profit-taking, chart consolidation, and a few other factors saw gold and silver’s Monday gains mitigated significantly.

This week has already played host to a good bit of economic data, but is going to be even more noteworthy come the European Central Bank meeting tomorrow. In addition to this, the eyes of the market continue to be fixated upon the price movement of crude oil. Like gold and silver, oil made gains on Monday only to back down to fresh multi-year lows a day later. At present, the poor performance of crude oil has acted as a weight, dragging down all raw commodities.

Attention Turns to European Central Bank Meeting

The big news of this has been the upcoming European Central Bank meeting, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday. While every ECB meeting is hawked over by investors from all over the world, this week’s meeting is of particular importance due to an expected policy shift many people think the ECB will make.

As it stands, there exists a large number of investors who are convinced that the European Central Bank, at their meeting tomorrow, will announce the implementation of the purchase of government bonds as a means of stimulating the economy. This type of monetary policy is known as quantitative easing and was the very same initiative that played a vital role in allowing the US to emerge from a recession that began around 2008.

Investors are so convinced that the ECB will introduce QE on Thursday simply because of the commentary the market has been dealt over the past week or two. For instance, Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, was quoted as saying that QE measures are by no means out of the question. In addition to this, the OECD came out and saying that more government spending is the only thing that will help an EU economy that is said to be struggling so severely that it is harming overall global economic growth.

While there are bits and pieces of economic data from around the world being published this week, the main focus will continue to be tomorrow’s ECB meeting.

November 26th Midweek Gold Market Update

Gold and silver spot values are moving mostly sideways to begin the day on Wednesday and to end the short holiday week for many Americans. As surprising as it may be, today is going to bring about a good quantity of economic data from the United States. Yesterday also played host to a decent amount of economic data, but it really didn’t have too much of an impact on the marketplace. What yesterday’s data did do, however, was limit the buying interest associated with gold and silver.

Despite the fact that most people in the United States will be out of commission for the duration of the week, there is a very important OPEC meeting expected to be held on Thursday. With crude oil prices continuing to hover near multi-year lows, the massive Middle Eastern oil cartel will need to do something quickly if they want to stabilize and grow spot values. For gold and silver, oil’s recent troubles have acted as a weight dragging them and all raw commodities downward.

Upward Revision for US 3rd Quarter GDP

Yesterday’s big news came in the form of a revised third-quarter GDP report from the United States. Initially, the first third-quarter report showed that United States GDP grew by more than 3.5% on an annualized basis this year. However, yesterday’s revision showed that actual GDP growth was just shy of 4%. This news helped give stocks and the Dollar a boost simply because the revision saw third-quarter US GDP beat the lowly expectations of just over 3% growth.

Of course, upbeat economic from the United States almost always levies downward pressure against gold and silver, and this time was no different. Now, it seems as though gold and silver are stuck trading in small, well-defined ranges due to the lack of any bullish fundamental news.

In other news from early this week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a statement yesterday condemning the slow growth of the many economies that make up the European Union. In the statement, the OECD said that slow EU growth is and will continue to be hurting overall global economic growth. As one potential remedy, the OECD suggested that more government spending may be in the cards. This suggestion is extremely intriguing considering that European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, just last week, announced that he and his colleagues are considering the implementation of quantitative easing measures as a means of spurring economic growth. For this reason, the next few weeks, which are supposed to include the next ECB policy meeting, will be especially intriguing for investors from all over the world.

November 19th Midweek Gold Market Update

As of the writing of this post, precious metals’ spot values are mostly holding steady and hanging on to the gains made on Tuesday. Like last week, this 5-day trading session has thus far been quiet and devoid of any noteworthy pieces of economic data. With that said, however, there are plenty of tidbits of information that investors have latched on to and picked apart, including comments made by the president of the European Central Bank.

The big data point of the day and week will come in a few hours in the form of the most recent minutes from the FOMC’s latest meeting. As has been the case for some time now, investors will be looking to today’s minutes as a place where they will hopefully derive more insight with regard to the timing of interest rate hikes in the United States.

As it stands, the seemingly inevitable raising of interest rates by the Federal Reserve is working to give the Dollar a bit of a boost while simultaneously limiting the buying interest associated with precious metals. Typically, gold and silver are seen as assets that protect an investor from uncertain, tumultuous economic times. Now, with the US economy on the up and up, the prospect of attaining gold and silver is simply not as attractive as it was when the US economy was struggling to gain some foothold. It will be interesting to see if today’s minutes offer any more insight regarding interest rates, but I have my doubts. The Fed has been vague about when they plan on hiking rates, so I do not think this time around will be any different.

European Central Bank Ponders Policy Moves

Despite the fact that this week has been insanely slow from economic and geopolitical standpoints, investors still have plenty to talk about because of comments made by ECB president Mario Draghi earlier in the week. Unless you have been completely out of touch in recent weeks and months, you are fully aware that the collective European Union economy is not faring so well. While the European Central Bank has made policy moves such as lowering interest rates and purchasing stocks, none of their moves thus far have really been much help. Now, the ECB seems to be pondering a new, more American way of combating stagnating economic conditions.

Earlier this week, ECB president Mario Draghi said that he and his colleagues have not discounted the possible buying of government bonds in an effort to stave off inflation and spur economic growth. For Americans, this tactic is known as quantitative easing and is credited as being a major part of the reason why we were able to leave our recession behind us much more readily than other struggling economies. It will be interesting to see what, if any, policy changes the ECB makes in the coming weeks/months.

November 12th Midweek Gold Market Update

So far, this week has not brought about too much in the way of markets-moving economic data. With as much data as was made public last week, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise either. Unfortunately for gold and silver, the lack of news is really only pushing spot values further downward. As it stands, metals have more or less conceded all of the gains that they made on the final day of last week.

In case you missed it, the last two days of last week brought about a good deal of economic data. On Thursday, the market was paying attention to the latest European Central Bank meeting and everything that came along with that. Much to the dismay of many, however, last week’s ECB meeting did not bring about any policy changes and yielded a more dovish statement from president Mario Draghi. Still, there is a widespread belief that that ECB will soon have to do something in order to combat a slew of stagnating economic across Europe.

On Friday, the all-important US employment report for October was made public and mulled over by global investors. Because September’s report showed job additions somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000, most analysts were expecting October’s employment report to yield much of the same. When the figures were made public, however, expectations that around 230,000 new jobs were created in October were shattered by actual figures showing job additions only around 213,000. As you could have probably guessed, this news boded well for metals and saw them end an otherwise poor week on an upbeat note. By Monday, however, more than half of the gains made on Friday were conceded and metals were back to trading in the red.

Slow Week Does Gold, Silver No Favors

As of midday on Wednesday, it is plain to see that there really isn’t much economic data for investors to look over and/or talk about. Yesterday was a military holiday in many parts of the world, so that meant that a slow week of trading slowed down even more. Gold and silver did not necessarily benefit from yesterday’s slow day of trading, but they also did not suffer any major losses either.

Equities in the US, however, downticked a little bit on Tuesday as a result of higher-trending European equity markets. European stocks were trading upward mostly due to the fact that so many corporate earnings reports came back better than expected. Highlighting these corporate earnings reports was Vodafone’s third-quarter earnings, which handily beat the expectations of analysts.

As we look ahead to the final few days of the week, I would not be at all surprised to see things remain as slow as they have been for the past few days. The attention of investors will be drawn to Friday’s weekly jobless claims report from the United States, but barring any shocking figures, that report will not have much of an impact on the marketplace.

November 5th Midweek Gold Market Update

Gold and silver spot values are moving sharply lower on Wednesday upon hearing the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Though there is still plenty of information for investors to mull over in the forthcoming days, yesterday’s elections were vitally important for a number of reasons.

As we look ahead to the last two days of the week, investors will be anxiously awaiting tomorrow’s European Central Bank meeting as well as Friday’s US employment data from October. Though there is little evidence out there able to confirm it, many investors are convinced that the ECB will be announcing fresh monetary stimulus measures at the conclusion of their meeting tomorrow. If this happens, and Friday’s employment data is better than expected, precious metals may feel even more selling pressure as we head into the weekend and next week. As such, the last few days of this week will be incredibly important for investors of all types.

Election Results Give Equities a Boost

Yesterday’s midterm elections went the way of the Republican party, and this has translated into equity markets in the US being given considerable boosts. The US Dollar was also given a significant boost as a result of yesterday’s election results. The reason for this is due to the fact that many people believe the Republicans, who now control both the House and the Senate, will be better for economic growth and for business than the Democrats were.

The fact that both the Dollar and equities are doing well today only worked to further pressure gold and silver. Now, spot gold is hovering near a 4.5 year low while silver is nearing 4 year lows of its own. Unfortunately, it is looking like the rest of the week will do gold and silver no favors. What data is expected to be released will more than likely only work against metals. With that said, stranger things have happened in the past.

Crude oil is also continuing to trend downward, and this has been yet another factor that has had a negative impact on the value of all raw commodities–including gold and silver. With the US Dollar and Crude Oil heading in inverse directions, the market is only growing increasingly bearish.

October 29th Midweek Gold Market Update

The early parts of this week have been fairly quiet and subdued simply because the global marketplace is awaiting the conclusion of the latest FOMC meeting, scheduled for this afternoon. There have been plenty of data points for the market to pay attention to, such as upbeat corporate earnings reports, some poor economic data, and declining crude oil prices, but most of these factors have failed to really move gold or silver too drastically in any one direction.

Of course, with that being said, it is clear to see that gold and silver are losing some value today in the lead-up to the Fed’s post-meeting statement. The Dollar, on the other hand, is remaining mostly steady after declining slightly through the first two days of the week. While the greenback was seen declining against most of its rivals on Tuesday, against the Swedish Krona, the greenback made nice strides forward after the Swedish central bank announced that they would be cutting interest rates to near-0 levels.

All Eyes on the Fed and Their Post-Meeting Statement

All this week, and especially today, the eyes of the investing world have been firmly fixated on the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting. While it is generally agreed upon that the Fed will not be making any policy shifts anytime soon, most every investor from around the world wants to know when rates will be raised as well as by how much they will be raised by.

As it stands, the expectations are that we will not see rate hikes until sometime in the middle of 2015, at the earliest. The Fed, in past meetings and statements, has cited slowing growth in places like Europe and Asia as major contributing factors behind why they are not so quick to hike interest rates. The widespread belief amongst Fed members is that slowing economies in other parts of the world will eventually have a negative impact on the economy at home. Because of this, a majority of investors are expecting the Fed to simply reiterate the same statements they have been making since the end of August.

Other than that, there really isn’t too much for investors to mull over. Gold and silver spot values have fared mostly poor through the first few days of this week simply because the declining value of crude oil is bringing the whole raw commodities market down with it to some extent. Despite reports saying that physical demand for precious metals is on the up and up in Asia, crude oil’s decline is mostly limiting any upward movement. It will be interesting to see what type of impact the Fed’s post-meeting statement has on the spot values of precious metals come the end of today and into tomorrow.

October 22nd Midweek Gold Market Update

After beginning the week in impressive fashion, metals are pulling back thanks to a corrective pullback and profit-taking. This week is not expected to bring about too much in the way of economic data, but with recent volatility in the currency and equity markets, there will be plenty for investors to pay attention to. Just yesterday, in fact, the greenback played part in a corrective bounce that saw it turn a few days’ worth of losses into gains.

A major feature in the marketplace both this week, last week, and likely to be for many weeks to come is the attention that is being paid to the Federal Reserve and their plans to raise interest rates. At present, the timeline for interest rate hikes is continually being pushed back, and that much is helping precious metals, but is also providing the US Dollar with a little bit of help as well.

Upbeat Corporate Earnings Help Equity Markets Rebound

Last week saw US equity markets trend lower and lower with each passing day. Through the first 2.5 days of this week, however, things have done the exact opposite as upbeat corporate earnings reports from Apple and other companies provide a bit of stabilization that was lacking a week ago. While there is still a lot of uncertainty with regard to equity markets in the US abounding through the global marketplace, things have become a good bit less volatile than they were 1 and even 2 weeks ago.

Unfortunately for precious metals, the renewed risk-appetite slowly but surely taking over the marketplace is limiting buying-interest significantly. This may result in the duration of the week seeing precious metals back down from the gains they made last week and early this week. It will be interesting to see however, because yesterday, despite a US equity market rally, gold and silver spot values were still able to finish the day on the up and up.

Because of the lack of economic data set to be made public this week, all eyes will be on the USD Index as well as equity indexes in the US and across the world. These have been important factors for investors and will likely remain that way for some time to come.

October 15th Midweek Gold Market Update

Precious metals quickly moved from near even to slightly upward after the release of some sub-par economic data. Thus far this week, things have been generally quiet due to North American holidays being celebrated on Monday (In the US and Canada), but there has still been plenty for investors to mull over and discuss.

As if it were to come as some as some surprise, more downtrodden economic data came out of the EU on Tuesday. In all, industrial production in Germany and across the region is down and has been for some time now. With this latest batch of poor economic data, the eyes of the investing world turn to the European Central Bank in order to see what, if anything, they are going to do to spur economic growth of any sort. While the ECB has already implemented policies aimed at spurring growth, we are now 3-4 months down the road and, clearly, not much progress has been made.

So long as things continue along the path they are on now, deflationary pressures will retain their firm grip on the wider EU economy. Things in Europe have gotten so bad that even the US Federal Reserve is hesitant to change their only policies for fear that it would slow down global and EU economic growth further. It will truly be interesting to see what direction the Euro Zone heads over the course of the coming days and weeks.

Poor US Economic Data Lifts Metals

When markets opened this morning, gold and silver spot values were trading near unchanged after a few consecutive days of gains. Then, shortly thereafter, some US economic data was made public and came back much weaker than expected, driving risk-aversion and, thus, the spot values of precious metals.

Among the reports was a US retail sales report for September which came in at down by .3%. While this data alone was disappointing, the producer price index for September in the United States was also down, by .1%. All in all, this data was much poorer than expected and ended up giving gold and silver a modest boost.

As you could have probably guessed, the weak US economic data had an immediate negative impact on the US Dollar as well as US equity indexes. Over the past few weeks, the equity indexes in the US have been home to some extreme volatility, and this too is helping drive risk-aversion forward.

October 8th Midweek Gold Market Update

Precious metals are holding steady to slightly lower through the first half of the day on Wednesday. This week is not exactly going to bring about a large quantity of economic data, but investors are eager to see what the Fed Minutes, expected to be released later today, have to say.

In case you missed it, the latter parts of last week brought about a good amount of economic activity, but none more important than Friday’s US Labor Department employment report for September. According to the report, nearly 250,000 new jobs were added to the US economy during September. This data caused US equities as well as the US Dollar to spike upward simply due to the fact that the figures easily beat the 215,000 job addition that was expected to be seen by the market. Unfortunately, however, those gains were short-lived as both the USD and US equities have had a rough run of form through the first two days this week.

Market Anxiously Awaits Federal Reserve Minutes

Though the minutes have not made their way to the market yet, it seems as though the USD Index has finally bottomed out after a few days of consecutive losses. Equities are still feeling a bit of pressure, but for the most part investors are holding steady in hopes of the Fed’s minutes bringing about some new information regarding interest rates in the United States.

As has been the case for the past 2 months or more, investors the world over have been clambering to get their hands on any concrete information regarding when the Federal Reserve of the United States plans on tightening the reigns on US monetary policy. While it is common knowledge, at this point, that the Fed plans on raising US interest rates, the long-debated topic has been with regard to when rates will be raised, and to what extent. For this reason, investors the world over are going to be paying close attention to anything and everything the Fed’s minutes have to say. The hope is that some sort of timeline regarding higher interest rates will be uncovered in the minutes, but the reality of the matter is that such a timeline will likely still only exist in the speculation of investors.

Apart from today’s minutes, the market does not really have much else to focus on. There has been some poor European data already on the slate this week, but that did not come as much of a surprise considering the recently weak form of the wider EU economy. Going forward, investors will also be paying close attention to the EU as monetary policy shifts are seeming increasingly inevitable with each passing week/month.

October 1st Midweek Gold Market Update

Precious metals rebounded a bit on Wednesday after the first two days of the week brought nothing but losses. There hasn’t been too much for investors to discuss through the early parts of the week, but that is going to change come tomorrow and the next day.

Despite there not being all that much economic data on the table, investors have been paying attention to a situation unfolding in Hong Kong. Beginning late last week, Hong Kong citizens, mostly students, have taken to the streets in order to protest what they are calling a lack of democratic reform. Initially, riot police clashed with the protesters and were even seen dispatching tear gas, but things have gotten significantly calmer since the weekend clashes. Despite the relative calm, stock markets from around the world have suffered pretty heavy losses stemming from the unrest happening in the financial capital of the world. As the days and weeks progress, we will continue to keep an eye on anything and everything happening in Hong Kong.

Heavy Slate of Economic Activity Looms Large

Looking ahead to tomorrow, investors will be anxious to hear what the outcome of the European Central Bank meeting brings. Due to the sub-par nature of recent EU economic data, most of the world will be tuning in in order to hear what ECB president Mario Draghi has to say about where the European economy is headed. Though there are some who think more policy shifts are needed, it is highly likely that we will see no policy shifts tomorrow. After all, the ECB has recently instilled new, looser monetary policy that is aimed at fighting deflation and propping up the EU economy. Unfortunately, however, none of these policy shifts seem to be having any real impact on the recovery process for the European Union.

On Friday, the attention of investors will shift once more to the latest US employment report from September. Despite a small batch of sub-par economic data today, most investors are expecting job growth from September to be very healthy. After all, the US economy has been performing extremely well in recent weeks and is looking as strong as ever. This is a major part of the reason behind why gold and silver spot values have suffered such heavy losses over the course of the past month and a half or so.