The prices of silver and gold changed direction and slipped on Wednesday. Their recent decline coincided with the changes in the forex markets. The recent developments in the Middle East including Syria and Egypt may have contributed to the strengthening of energy commodities and indirectly perhaps even other commodities. In the U.S, consumer confidence report came out: The report showed a slight increase in the index during August. Conversely, pending home sales fell by 1.3% during the month, which was a bit disappointing. Will precious metals prices resume their upward trend? On today’s agenda: Second U.S GDP 2Q 2013 Estimate, U.S. Jobless Claims, and German Unemployment Rate.
Here is a short outlay for precious metals for Thursday, August 29th:
Gold and Silver Prices Review – August Update
On Wednesday, gold inched down by 0.09% to $1,418.60; Silver decreased by 1.05% to $24.39. During August, gold increased by 8.09%; silver rallied by 24.27%.
In the chart below are the normalized prices of precious metals for 2013 (normalized to 100 as of July 31st). The prices of gold and silver have increased during the past several weeks.
The ratio between the two precious metals rose on Wednesday to 58.16. During August, the ratio fell by 13.85% as silver has out-performed gold.
See here the weekly outlook for gold and silver for August 26-30.
On Today’s Agenda
Second U.S GDP 2Q 2013: This will be the second publication of U.S’s second quarter 2013 real GDP growth. In the previous estimate the U.S GDP rose by 1.7% in the second quarter of 2013. If the growth rate for the second quarter will be revised by a large margin, this could affect precious metals prices;
U.S. Jobless Claims: In the latest report the jobless claims rose by 13k to 336k; this upcoming weekly update may affect the U.S dollar and consequently commodities and stocks markets;
German Unemployment Rate: During last month the unemployment slipped; the developments in the German workforce could affect the Euro/USD;
Currencies / Precious Metals– August Update
On Wednesday, the Euro/ USD currency pair slightly fell by 0.40% to 1.3339. During the month, so far, the Euro/USD slightly rose by 0.28%. Further, other currencies such as the Aussie dollar also depreciated yesterday against the U.S dollar by 0.49%. The correlations among gold, Euro and Aussie dollar slightly weakened in the past several weeks, e.g. the correlation between the Aussie/USD and gold price is 0.21 during August. If the correlations among precious metals prices changes and leading currency pairs will remain weak, the effect of the changes in the relative value of USD compared to other currencies on gold and silver will decline.
Here is a reminder of the top events and publications that are scheduled for today and tomorrow (all times GMT):
Today
08:55 – German Unemployment Rate
13:30 – Second U.S GDP 2Q 2013 Estimate
13:30 – U.S. Jobless Claims Weekly Report
Tomorrow
07:00 – German Retail Sale
08:00 – KOF Economic Barometer
10:00 – EU CPI Flash Estimate
10:00 – EU Unemployment Rate
13:30 – Canada’s GDP by Industry
13:30 – U.S Personal spending
14:55 – UoM Consumer Sentiment
02:00 – China Manufacturing PMI
For further reading: