Precious metals began the day in positive fashion, but before long were seen paring early gains and turning daily highs into daily lows. Though this week was not touted as being one that will bring about a large quantity of economic data, today offered some respite in the form of a US retail sales report from July.
Apart from today’s somewhat limited economic data from the United States, the marketplace’s main focus remains on a few unfolding geopolitical events from Europe and the Middle East.
US Retail Sales Report Falls Short of Expectations
Though this week was not supposed to bring about much in the way of markets-moving economic data, it did just that in the form of July’s retail sales report from the United States. After June brought about a report that showed retail sales improving by two tenths of a percentage point on an annualized basis, most experts and market analysts were expecting to see similar figures for July. Unfortunately, July’s data showed that retail sales remained unchanged and did not move much at all.
This news initially downgraded the value of the US Dollar and gave a boost to the spot values of precious metals. Before long, however, the Dollar was seen making up for losses while gold and silver began slowly but surely losing the value they gained in the early morning hours. By day’s end, gold and silver were in the red while the US Dollar ended the day near daily highs.
Looking ahead to the last two days of the week, I expect investors to continue focusing on the wide array of geopolitical events taking place around the world. There is a Russian humanitarian aid convoy heading to Ukraine, but according to Ukrainian officials it will not be allowed to cross the border. With a standoff in the making, there is no doubting that the next few days will be at least a little bit more interesting than the last few days have been. Whether a more interesting marketplace translates into a lot of spot value activity or not has yet to be seen, however.
