Gold Prices Climb on Easing Hopes; Silver Prices also Surge
Gold prices settled sharply higher in trading on Thursday amid rising expectations of further monetary easing from the Federal Reserve. Silver prices also rallied on Thursday.
Gold futures for delivery in December on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 2% to settle at $1,672.80 an ounce, the highest settlement price since mid-April.
Gold rose after minutes of Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting, which were released late Wednesday, showed that the central bank is likely to implement further monetary easing measures soon. According to the minutes, FOMC members discussed taking more measures to boost economic growth, unless there is a significant improvement in the economy.
Weak manufacturing data from China, the world’s second-largest economy, meanwhile, raised hopes of monetary easing from People’s Bank of China. With global central banks expected to implement easing measures, gold prices could continue to rally.
Gold prices also got a lift from a weaker U.S. dollar on Thursday. The ICE dollar index, which tracks the performance of the green against six major currencies, fell to 81.367 on Thursday.
Silver prices also surged on Thursday. Silver futures for September delivery rose 3.1% to settle at $30.46 an ounce.
In late trading on Thursday, the iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) was up 2.46%, the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) was up 4.83%, and the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ETF) (NYSE: ZSL) was down 4.84%.
Platinum continued to advance on Thursday. Platinum futures for October delivery rose 1.9% to $1,554.90 an ounce, the highest settlement price since early May. Palladium for September delivery rallied 4.4% to $656.60 an ounce.
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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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