Stock Market Watch

Gold and Silver Prices Edge Lower

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Gold prices edged lower on Wednesday as upbeat data on U.S. PMI dashed any hopes of possible quantitative easing even as euro-zone manufacturing activities contracted in April, putting pressure on euro. Silver prices have also edged lower in trading today.

Spot gold slid 0.2 percent to $1,659.06 an ounce by 0317 GMT, after climbing up to $1,671.20 in on Tuesday. U.S. gold edged lower 0.1 percent to $1,660.2.


Following recent spate of discouraging data on the U.S. economy, the Institute of Supply Management released factory output data for April on Monday-which showed pace of manufacturing activities was fastest in preceding ten months.

Stronger economic indicators will lessen the need for the U.S. Federal Reserve to ease its monetary policy, thereby denting investors’ appetite in bullion which benefits from low real interest rates.

Now, gold investors are keeping a close eye on U.S. non-farms job data, slated to be released on Friday. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank’s decision on interest rates on Thursday along with weekend election results from France and Greece are also likely to influence the market sentiment. On Tuesday, Australia’s central bank surprisingly cut the benchmark interest rate, which put the pressure on Australian dollar, pushing up the U.S. unit.

“Investors are standing on the sidelines of the market, waiting for the uncertainty around U.S. economy, euro zone and QE3 (third round of quantitative easing by the Fed) to clear up, said one Hong Based dealer to CNBC-Reuters.

Commenting over gold’s performance in the short-run, Nick Trevethan, senior metals strategist at ANZ in Singapore, said to Reuters, “Gold will probably be sitting in limbo for a few more  days, It (gold) is rather inversely sensitive to positive numbers, as evidenced by the ISM number overnight.”

Meanwhile, SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s biggest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings fell for a second successive day to a three-month low of 1,274.09 tons by May 1.

Silver, at last check was sliding 0.3%, trading at $30.86 an ounce.

In pre-market trading in New York, the iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) is down 0.86% to $29.80, the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) is down 1.25% to $48.98, and the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ETF) (NYSE: ZSL) is up 1.86% to $11.52.

 

 

 

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edliston
Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.


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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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