Weekly Round-Up: Gold Price Headed For Third Weekly Loss in a Row

After a fairly flat start to the week, gold prices continued their decline from the week previous. Spot prices started out at $1,123 per ounce on Monday, but dropped as low as $1,102 per ounce during Wednesday trading hours to finish the week at $1,104.
According to MarketWatch, this marks the third weekly loss in a row for the yellow metal. Investors are awaiting results of a two-day Federal Reserve meeting policy on September 16. A raise in interest rates might not be great for gold in the short term, but BullionVault head of research Adrian Ash told the publication that there could be more to the picture.
“Fears over China’s fast-weakening data are adding to the pressure ahead of next week’s U.S. rate decision,” he said. “[I]f the Fed does raise, it will at least remove that threat from gold by becoming fact. The growing consensus amongst bullion analysts is that Fed lift-off should mark an important near-term low for gold, kick-starting a relief rally.”

Silver prices also fell this week ahead of the Fed meeting, losing 1.36 percent to trade at $14.51 per ounce.
Taking a look at copper prices, the base metal saw a bit of a rise this week. Spot copper prices gained approximately 4 percent to finish at $2.43 per pound. The red metal dipped along with other commodities early in the day on Friday, but was up 0.12 percent later on.
Prices drew some support from a slightly weaker US dollar at the end of the week, the Wall Street Journal reports. Copper for December delivery on the New York Comex was up 0.3 percent to $2.4535.
Still, there remains some concern amongst investors and traders regarding a slowing economy in China and weaker copper demand. “China continues to signal weak copper demand, inventories are still high, and a supply surplus is still very likely next year,” Bart Melek, senior commodities strategist at TD Securities, told the publication.
Finally, oil prices lost 74 cents on Friday to trade at $45.18 as of  1:16 p.m. EST, according to Reuters. Spot oil prices were down 24 percent for the week.
US Crude futures took back some losses after data showed that companies cut oil rigs for the second week in a row. However, Goldman Sachs issued a fairly alarming outlook for the oil price on Friday. As the CBC reports, the firm downgraded its outlook for West Texas Intermediate from $57 per barrel to $45 per barrel, warning that prices could fall as low as $20 per barrel.
“The oil market is even more oversupplied than we had expected and we now forecast this surplus to persist in 2016,” CBC quotes the note as saying.

 
Securities Disclosure: I, Teresa Matich, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article. 
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