Last week gold and silver prices tumbled down and thus are headed (at thus rate) to the worst performing month (so far) in 2012. This upcoming week there are many news items on the agenda that may affect the direction of gold and silver prices. The main events of the week will revolve around the U.S core CPI, the EU GDP, U.S Philly Fed Survey, bond auctions in Italy and Spain, U.S housing starts and minutes of the recent FOMC meeting.
Here is a short overview and an outlook for May 14th to 18th; this includes a short description with a fundamental analysis of the main news items, reports, and public speeches that may affect precious metals prices.
Gold price sharply fell during last week by 3.72%; Silver, even more than gold, plummeted on a weekly scale by 5.07%.
During last week, it was reported that the industrial production output of China and India didn’t reach expectations and thus may have adversely affected precious metals rates. The U.S PPI declined by 0.2% in April but the core PPI rose by 0.2%; U.S initial jobless claims remained virtually flat at 367k according to its latest update.
The result of the elections in France and Greece raised the concerns that the austerity plans in these countries won’t be carried through by the new elected officials. This news may have also been among the factors dragging down not only the Euro but also other currencies and commodities prices.
The Euro decreased again against the U.S dollar by 1.27% (on a weekly scale); furthermore, other “risk” currencies such as the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar also moderately depreciated against the U.S dollar during last week by 1.58% and 0.46%, respectively. This decline of the Euro/USD and AUD/USD may have been among the factors to drag down gold and silver during last week.
The video link above shows a broad overview for the main publications, public speeches and events that may influence gold and silver prices during May 14th to May 18th; the video includes reviewing the main reports, events, decisions and publications that will come out during the upcoming week. Some of these reports and events include: U.S core CPI, the minutes of the last Australian monetary policy meeting, the minutes of the recent FOMC meeting, speech of ECB President Draghi, Japan and Euro Area’s GDP, Germany and EU ZEW economic sentiment, Philly Fed survey and U.S. jobless claims weekly update (just to name a few).
In conclusion, I still speculate bullion market will continue to show weakness: if the U.S reports including the core CPI, housing starts, Philly Fed and jobless claims will beat or meet expectations then this might contribute to weak gold and silver prices. The minutes of the recent FOMC meeting might affect the US dollar and thus also precious metals if it will reveal some unexpected issues. The results of the EU auctions mainly in Italy and Spain could also have a short term effect on the Euro, which is strongly and positively correlated with commodities prices. Finally, The EU related publications mainly the EU GDP, German ZEW economic sentient and EU industrial production may also play a role in the path of the Euro and consequently also gold and silver.
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