Gold and silver prices continue their January upward trend. Yesterday other commodities also rallied including oil and gas. Currently, gold and silver are traded with moderate changes. Today, the Euro Area Manufacturing PMI report will be published, the Canadian Retails Sales and Bank of England’s Governor King will give a speech. Many look forward for tomorrow’s FOMC statement that could affect commodities markets if there will be interesting headlines in it.
Here is a market outlook of metals prices for today, January 24th:
Gold and Silver Prices –January Update
Gold price rose on Monday by 0.86% and reached $1,678.3; silver price also gained 1.88% and reached $32.27. During January, gold price rallied by 7.1% and silver price by 15.6%.
The graph below shows the development of the normalized prices of gold and silver (gold and silver prices are normalized to December 30th) during January.
The ratio between gold and silver prices slipped on Monday, January 23rd and reached 52.01. During January the ratio fell by 7.3% as silver price has slightly outperformed gold price.
Euro Area Manufacturing PMI (December): In the recent report the Euro Zone Manufacturing PMI reached 46.9, i.e. contraction in manufacturing. The upcoming report could influence the Euro/USD trading and consequently bullion prices;
Bank of England’s Governor King speaks: The governor of Bank of England will give a speech that may affect forex trading especially the Great Brittan Pound (see here last statement);
Forex / Gold & Silver Market – January
The Euro/U.S Dollar rallied from Friday’s and gained on Monday 0.64% to reach 1.3014; if the Euro Australian dollar and Canadian dollar will continue to rise against the U.S. dollar it could also help keep the current upward direction of gold and silver. Currently, the Euro/USD is slightly falling.
American Stock Markets / Gold & Silver Prices – January
The S&P500 index slightly increased on Monday by 0.05% to 1,316.00; other leading indexes on the other hand slightly slipped yesterday including the Dow Jones and NASADQ. During January the S&P500 rose by 4.64%. Since the S&P500 index has a strong and positive relation with precious metals, if the stock market will continue to rise, this might indicate gold and silver prices will increase as well. The chart below presents the development of precious metals prices and S&P500 index during January (normalized prices to Dec 30).
Current Gold and Silver Prices January 24th
Gold price per ounce (February 2012 delivery) is traded at $1,674.90 per t oz. a $3.4 or 0.20% decrease as of 08:16*.
Silver price per ounce (February 2012 delivery) is at $32.360 per t oz – a $0.09 or 0.28% increase as of 08:17*.
(* GMT)
Gold and Silver Prices Forecast
Gold and silver prices continue to rally and keep on demonstrating strong numbers; the recent rally of the Euro along with the January effect of the stock markets may have helped with this upward trend in the bullion market; Bloomberg also reported of the bullish movement in the metals markets. Today, there might be a correction to this rally, especially if the EU manufacturing PMI will show a sharp decline, but I speculate the general upward direction will continue for metals.
Here is a reminder of the top events and reports that are planed for today and tomorrow (all times GMT):
Today
09:00 – Euro Area Manufacturing PMI
13:30 –Retails Sales Canada
20:00 –Bank of England’s Governor King speaks
Tomorrow
09:00 – German Business Climate Survey
09:30 – GB GDP Q4 2011
13:15 – ECB President Speaks
15:00 – U.S. Pending Home Sales
15:30 – EIA Crude Oil Market Report
19:15 – FOMC Meeting (Statement)
For further reading:
- Weekly Outlook for 23-27 January
- Gold and Silver Prices Weekly Outlook for January 23-27
- Gold and Silver Prices Outlook for January 2012
About the Author: Lior Cohen, M.A in Economics, a commodities analyst and blogger at Trading NRG.