This month, both stock indices and precious metal prices saw consistent gains week over week as conflict continues to unfold in the Middle East and Europe. With prices for Yields falling a little over 3%, reaching their lowest levels in two months, price action for stock indices recently drove markets above 7% in response to falling treasury yields.
Additionally, most analysts expect Fed rate hikes to slow down. As hopes of inflation cooling build, investors continue to develop an increased confidence in stocks. This lead to a surge in stock prices over the course of the month.
Although this season saw better-than-expected retail spending, the Fed remains concerns about slower economic growth in the last weeks of the 4th quarter. Indeed, this could be a driver for potential resistance in markets as the year comes to an end.
However, considering the dollar index is currently in a downtrend toward the $100 level, markets generally priced in bullish trends across various assets. Furthermore, a combination of a falling dollar index, rate hike slowdown, and a better-than-anticipated retail spending season generally means bullish trends for markets. As a result, this month continued to show a strong, consistent upward trend.
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Gold Continues to Climb in Price
Along with most other precious metal prices, gold continued to climb this past month, trading just above 2,000/oz and breaching the October ‘23 high. Due to the ongoing global conflicts, price action for gold shows strong bullish momentum, just like last month.
Of course, the Hamas-Israel war has been a main driver in recent rallies across precious metals as investors typically seek these safe haven assets during times of global conflict. In response, gold prices are now nearing their all-time highs. This continues to pressure the U.S. dollar index further downward and below the $105 level
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Precious Metal Prices, Indices, Look Toward 2024
On a long-term scale, global conflict will impose risks on markets as investors seek safe haven assets and the general disruption lowers demand across global economies. However, earlier this month, prices for safe-haven assets like gold jumped to near all-time highs, while stocks have also begun to climb over 7%.
However, despite recent volatility and the aforementioned geopolitical conflict, the outlook for silver price is considerably different than gold. While silver prices continued to climb this month, they are still down from the high of $25.1/oz achieved in July 2023. Price action for precious metals generally underwent gains since the start of November. Collectively, they traded just over 12% since hitting its lowest point at around $21.8/oz. That said, this amount has not quite broken out of its prior high, indicating that the overall trend for silver is still within a range.
Industrial Demand Impacts Silver Prices
Another driver in silver price is industrial demand. During times of geopolitical conflict, industrial activity generally becomes disrupted, affecting demand and the amount of silver available for consumers.
This is significantly impacting the price action behind silver this month. Considering prices witnessed gains, markets for the metal have generally stayed within range, and the asset failed to break out of prior highs. We will likely see an uptrend leading into the end of the year.
Overall, precious metal prices and stock indices typically see consistent gains in November. However, fluctuations among industrial sectors can significantly influence the volatility of silver. This is likely what drove prices for silver up this past month, though it was not far enough above range to induce a long-term trend.
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