Gold Prices Fall As Euro Sags Before EU Summit; Silver Prices Flat

Gold Prices edged lower on Monday as euro slipped against the U.S. dollar just ahead of the EU summit. Meanwhile, silver prices were flat in mid-day trading on Monday.

While spot gold Spot gold at last check traded nearly flat at $1,571 an ounce, U.S. gold futures for August delivery inched up $5.6 an ounce at $1,572 an ounce.

On Friday, the metal ended its worst weekly performance since May. The metal plunged 3.5% last week as the Fed disappointed investors by failing to provide any further monetary easing measures such as quantitative easing.

Now, all eyes will be set on European Summit in Brussels, scheduled on Friday. According to a document prepared for the meeting, the European leaders are likely to discuss on cross-border banking union, closer fiscal integration and the possibility of a debt redemption fund.

Commenting over gold’s price possible range for the next few days, Hayden Atkins, analyst at Macquarie said to Reuters, “The broader picture suggests gold could move a bit lower, but it will stay in this range until we see definitively whether the bulls will be right about the printing presses at central banks ramping up again, or whether they will hold fire until the world gets a lot worse.”

Atkins said that bullion investors are following a wait and watch policy for the time being and believes that next week’s U.S. non-farms payroll data will be a key factor on deciding how the gold market will behave. Atkins believes if the job data turns out to be as bad as the previous one in May then gold might rally and could even touch $1600 an ounce level.

In some other precious metal markets, silver prices were almost flat at $26.8 an ounce.

The iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) is currently trading 1.80% higher at $26.62, the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) is currently trading 3.62% higher at $38.05, and the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ETF) (NYSE: ZSL) is currently trading 3.83% lower at $68.23.

Spot platinum inched up 0.2 percent at $1,430 an ounce, while spot palladium prices remained flat at $604 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.