Mid-Day Gold & Silver Market Report – 4/5/2013

Geoffrey Varner

4/5/2013 12:01:00 PM

QE3 EXPECTED THROUGH 2013; GOLD HOLDS STEADY

With a weaker than expected jobs report, the ongoing speculation of when the Federal Reserve would cut their bond buying program was silenced for now. Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co., said, “This data should snuff out any chatter that the Fed will taper or wind down the [quantitative easing] purchase operations any time for the foreseeable future.” The cornerstone of the Fed’s plan is a substantial improvement in the labor market outlook. Today’s report put job growth at a nine month low, showing we are not there yet. Michael Gapin, economist at Barclays Capital, said, “We expect the Fed to continue its monthly purchase rate of $85 billion for the remainder of the year, before tapering beginning in the first quarter of 2014.”

The Gold price was the unintended beneficiary of today’s jobs report. Although the Precious Metal is down about 2 percent on the week and is still on track for a second week of declines, Gold has seen session highs above $1,570 today. Societe Generale analyst Robin Bhar said, “The data took everybody by surprise and Gold jumped on that number and that tells us the economy is still pretty soft.” He continued to say this is just one number affecting Gold and cautioned reading too much into it.

At 1:00 p.m. (EDT), the APMEX Precious Metals spot prices were:

• Gold, $1,576.00, Up $22.10.
• Silver, $27.32, Up $0.46.
• Platinum, $1,536.80, Up $19.00.
• Palladium, $723.80, Down $1.70

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