Last week gold price didn’t do much and mostly declined, while silver price edged up. This slow paced trading might change in the upcoming week as there are several important items on the agenda that could affect not only the bullion market, but also other commodities such as crude oil. The main even will revolve around the FOMC meeting and the U.S GDP. The Fed will announce if it will issue another stimulus plan. During the month so far the sharpest daily movement for bullion prices came on April 4th, after the FOMC published the minutes of the previous meeting. During March it was on March 14th after the FOMC announced no QE3 for now. This means, there is a good chance that no matter what will be the decision in the upcoming FOMC meeting there will be a sharp movement in gold and silver prices.
Here is a short overview and a forecast for the upcoming week of April 16th to 20th; this includes a short description of the main news items, public speeches, and events that may have affect precious metals prices during last week. In this projection I use charts and a fundamental analysis to examine how the upcoming events and financial publications during the upcoming week may affect the daily percent changes of gold and silver prices.
Gold price moderately declined during last week by 1.05%. Silver price, slightly rose on a weekly scale by 1.05%;
During last week the U.S jobless claims slightly declined (week over week); this news didn’t seem to have much effect on the forex or commodities markets. The housing market in the U.S continued to show signs of slow recovery at best. Finally the U.S Philly Fed had grown by a slightly slower pace than a month earlier. This disappointing news may have adversely affected the U.S dollar.
During last week the Euro changed direction and rose against the U.S dollar by 1.08% (on a weekly scale); furthermore, other “risk” currencies such as the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar also appreciated against the U.S dollar during said time by 0.74% and 0.72%, respectively. The rally of the Euro/USD and AUD/USD may have been among the factors to pull silver prices up during last week.
The video link above has a broad outlook for the main news, public speeches and events that may stir up the markets and move gold and silver prices during the week of April 16th to 20th; the video includes reviewing the main reports, events, decisions and news items that will come out during the upcoming week. Some of these reports and events include: U.S. retails sales monthly report, FOMC meeting statement and economic projection, U.S. consumer confidence monthly update, U.S new home sales, Canada and U.S retails sales report, ECB President speech, U.S GDP, and U.S. jobless claims weekly update (just to name a few).
In conclusion, I speculate that if the FOMC will not go a head and pull the lever on another stimulus plan, then gold and silver prices are likely to take another hit and tumble down. Furthermore, if the U.S reports including GDP for Q1 2012, retail sales update and new home sales will hit the estimates then bullion prices will go even further down. Finally if the Euro and other “risk currencies” will continue to trade up in the upcoming week, as they did during last week, then they may curb some of the expected decline in bullion prices.
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