Gold and Silver – Daily Outlook for December 26th

Following last week’s FOMC decision to mini-taper QE3 by $10 billion, the markets have calmed down this week. Further, the holiday season in the U.S and Europe has curbed down the volatility in the commodities, forex and stock markets. This low volatility is likely to continue in the coming days until New Year’s. On today’s agenda: Minutes of Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting and U.S. Jobless Claims.

Here is a short overview for precious metals for Thursday, December 26th:

Gold and Silver – December Review                          

On Tuesday, gold slightly rose by 0.52% to $1,203.6; Silver, by 0.39% to $19.45. During December, gold declined by 3.75%; silver, by 2.73%. In the chart below are the normalized prices of precious metals for 2013 (normalized to 100 as of November 29th). The prices of gold and silver have moved in an unclear trend during the past several days.

Gold and silver Chart 2013  December 26

The ratio between the two precious metals rose on Tuesday to 61.87. During December, the ratio slightly slipped by 1.05% as silver has moderately out-performed gold.

Gold  to silver ratio Chart 2013  December 26The gold and silver futures volumes of trade have tumbled down and reached on Tuesday 45 thousand and 12 thousand, respectively. The volume of trade is likely to remain low in the coming days.

volume Gold & silver prices 2013  December 26 

On Today’s Agenda

Minutes of Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting: Bank of Japan kept this month its monetary policy unchanged. The minutes may offer some insight regarding the bank’s future plans; this news may affect the Japanese yen and consequently commodities prices;

U.S. Jobless Claims Weekly update:  This weekly report will pertain to the changes in the initial jobless claims for the week ending on December 22nd; in the previous report the jobless claims increased by 10k to reach 379k; this next weekly report may affect the U.S dollar and consequently commodities and stocks markets;

Currencies / Precious Metals Correlations – December Update

On Wednesday, the Eur/USD currency pair inched up by 0.04% to 1.3687. During December, the Eur/USD increased by 0.65%. Conversely, other currencies such as the Aussie dollar and Canadian dollar slightly depreciated yesterday against the U.S dollar by 0.36% and 0.1%, respectively. The correlations among gold, silver and Euro have further weakened again in recent weeks, e.g. the correlation between the Aussie dollar/USD and gold price is only 0.05 during November-December – its lowest level since September. This could suggest the movement of gold and silver prices have little to do with the shifts in the forex market.

Here is a reminder of the main events and publications that are scheduled for today and tomorrow (all times GMT):

Today

00:50 – Minutes of Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting

13:30 – U.S. Jobless Claims Weekly update

Tomorrow

15:30 – U.S Crude Oil Stockpiles Weekly report

15:30 – EIA U.S. Natural Gas Storage Update

For further reading: