CRUDE OIL PRICES FALL; CONTAGION FEARS GROW FOR EUROZONE
Precious metals prices remain down across the board following this morning’s trading. Indications of slowing growth in China and Germany strengthened the U.S. dollar, which pushed the price of Gold down. The Gold price traditionally moves opposite of the U.S. dollar. Crude oil prices continued to fall today. Gerrit Zambo at Bayerische Landesbank said, “There is no motivation for buying. People are becoming a bit cautious because it is more or less clear that Iran doesn’t want to get into war with anyone, and talk of releasing strategic stocks is bearish.”
The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) readings from France and Germany show the eurozone is heading backward into a recession. The PMI rating is based on a 100-point scale, with 50 being the divider between growth and contraction. The PMI for February dropped to 48.7 from 48.78. “What this morning’s data highlight is the knife-edge that the eurozone is operating on, with even the core countries struggling to grow at a sufficient pace to compensate for the ongoing recessions in several peripheral nations,” Simon Smith at FxPro in London wrote in an e-mail commentary.
At noon (CDT), the APMEX precious metals spot prices were:
- Gold - $1,640.30 – Down $11.40.
- Silver - $31.31 – Down $0.97.
- Platinum - $1,613.70 – Down $27.70.
- Palladium - $652.80 – Down $36.90.
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