Stocks Edge Higher With Help from Commodities

Cassie Bastien

8/16/2017 12:48:34 PM

Daily Gold & Silver Market Report – 08/16/2017

Official data showed U.K. shares climbed Wednesday “as higher commodity prices lifted mining and energy stocks,” according to NASDAQ and RTTNews.com. The British pound also firmed after the release of second-quarter unemployment figures, which fell to 4.4 percent, the lowest since 1975. Mining companies such as “Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore all rose over 2 percent while oil major Tullow Oil jumped as much as 4 percent.”

A Potential Silver Rally?

Some commodities market observers and investors believe Silver has further upside and the gray metal's recent pop is a sign of a potentially epic rally, helped by a struggling U.S. dollar. ETF Daily News says, “Things seem to have begun to turn around after the recent news about North Korea and the inactions in regards to U.S. legislation. Both Gold and Silver have broken their short term trends. We might be looking at a multi-week uptick from here.” Reporter Brenton Garen says it is not so much the Federal Reserve’s next move that could cause this “epic rally” in Silver prices, but more so what happens between the U.S. and North Korea. FXEmpire notes, “Silver tends to be extraordinarily volatile, and can turn directions rather rapidly.”

Gold Prices Firm as Attention Turns

After two days of losses, Gold prices started to show some positivity Wednesday as investors await clues from the Fed's July meeting regarding the potential for further interest rate hikes. NZ analyst Daniel Hynes said, “There’s potentially a little bit of rebound into the end of the week though obviously most of the focus will be on the [Federal open market committee meeting] minutes [Wednesday] afternoon. Any indication about a potential rate hike could derail that safe-haven buying.” Additionally, BusinessDay Reporter Apeksha Nair said the U.S. dollar was lower in early Asian trading, while Asian stocks rose as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un retracted his threat of firing missiles toward the U.S. territory of Guam. However, Hynes said “the underlying issues that started emerging last week are far from evaporated.”

At 1:48 p.m. (ET), the APMEX Precious Metals spot prices were:

• Gold, $1,279.30 Up $2.50
• Silver, $17.21 Up $0.21
• Platinum, $976.10 Up $9.70
• Palladium, $917.00 Up $20.90

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