Let’s examine the news and events that might affect current gold and silver prices as of April 4th:
Turmoil in Middle East – update
The fights between the rebels and Gaddafi’s troops continue with no clear sight of a detente in the near future between the sides, even though there are attempts by NATO to try and reach a diplomatic solution for these fights. The US forces are planned to relinquish the command of the Allies’ operation in Libya to NATO. See here for more news and updates about the turmoil in the Middle East and its affect on commodities’ markets.
March 2011 US Labor Report
In the recent published US employment report the number of non-farm employees increased by 216,000. This is a slight rise above expectations for that month. The rate of unemployment declined moderately declined to 8.8%.
This slight improvement in the US labor force’s condition, might have affected precious metals as gold and silver prices moderately declined, And yet, currently gold and silver prices are rising, which shows that investors were probably not too impressed with the US labor report. If they were, gold and silver price would have continued to drop (assuming that a stronger US economy will push back investors to invest in it, and thus decreasing the demand for gold and silver and consequentially also reducing the pressure for gold and silver prices to increase).
Gold and Silver prices during March 2011
The month of Mach continues to show so far little change in gold prices. On the other hand, silver price is still high compare to the beginning of the month even though its price didn’t change much in the last several days.
As presented in the chart below, the ratio of gold to silver prices declined throughout most of 2011 so far because silver prices increased by a higher rate than gold prices did.
The gold to silver ratio: as of Friday, April 1st the ratio between gold and silver prices remained unchanged at 38.32 – the lowest level this month.
Current Gold and Silver prices
US markets present price inclinations in major precious metals prices:
The current gold price, short term futures (April 2011 delivery) is traded at 1,436.5 USD / t oz. a 7.6$ increase or 0.53%, as of 14.22*.
Current silver price, short term futures is at 38.51 USD / t oz – a 0.778 increase or a 2.06%, as of 14.32*.
(* GMT)
Thus the current ratio of gold to silver prices is at 37.3 – the lowest level in 2011.
Gold and silver prices Outlook and Analysis:
The rally of silver prices during March, mostly in the middle of the month, has diminished in the last days of March. The rally might have been fueled by the turmoil in Japan and the involvement of US and several European countries in Libya. These events raised the uncertainty in the financial markets and might have affected these countries’ exchange rate (YEN, USD).
I speculate that gold prices will continue to moderately rise as the week will progress.
As for silver price, its rally will continue to slow down in the coming days as it did in the past week.
Here is a reminder of the top news and reports that are published today and tomorrow (all times GMT):
Today
2.30 – Australian trade of Balance
Tomorrow
5.30 – Reserve Bank of Australia – rate statements
[ratings]
For further reading (in this site):
- Crude oil prices Monthly outlook –April 2011
- Weekly outlook for April 4-8
- Gold Prices Outlook for 2011 and Analysis of 2010
- Gold prices outlook for April 2011 – what’s next for gold?