Stock Market Watch

Gold Prices Hit Four Month Low; Silver Prices Down More than 1%

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Gold prices continued to slide on Friday, touching its four month low as ongoing uncertainty over euro-zone debt and Spanish banking crisis, prompted investors to seek refuge in safer assets like dollars, U.S. treasuries thereby putting pressure on euro and precious metals, even as U.S. consumer confidence index rose surprisingly to a 4 year high in May reducing chances of any sort of quantitative easing measures. Silver prices are also down sharply in trading today.

On Thursday, the euro hit a 31/2 month low against the dollar as edgy investors cut their exposure to euro. Investors are anxious as they ponder how the ongoing chaos in Greece would end? Will the struggling peripheral economy exit from the monetary union or will the new coalition government-if it is formed –adhere to bailout pact?


Meanwhile Spain-Europe’s fourth biggest economy- is trying to clean up the mess from its struggling banking industry. On Friday, the Government of Spain announced that it will hire outside advisers to review the health of local banks and force them to set aside an additional €30 billion to cover losses, a move seen as an attempt to boost investors’ confidence towards Spain.

In U.S. a data on consumer sentiment for May showed that U.S consumers were optimistic bucking economists forecast for a decline

At last check, spot gold edged down to $1,573.29 an ounce, its weakest since Jan. 3, after support gave way at $1,579, and was down 0.8 percent at $1,581.40 an ounce

Reacting over gold’s slide and possible support range for next few days, Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS Finance said, to Reuters, “The markets are not happy at all, Gold still feels a bit too heavy. With this move down, physical demand is not all that great. It feels like it may test the lower side around 1550 first, before bouncing back up again.”

In some other precious metals markets, silver lost 1.4 percent at $28.58 an ounce, tracking losses in gold.

The iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) is currently trading 0.74% lower at $28.04, the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) is currently trading 1.38% lower at $43, and the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ETF) (NYSE: ZSL) is currently trading 1.13% higher at $64.57.

Spot platinum slid 1.4 percent at $1,459.75 an ounce, while spot palladium lost 0.9 percent at $604.75 an ounce

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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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