Gold prices were slumping in the last months of 2016 but 2017 has already proven to be kinder to those who invest in this commodity.
As of mid-day on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, gold prices were at a six-week high. Gold prices were up on Monday, Jan. 9, after a lackluster end to last week. Gold prices per ounce increased 0.2 percent to settle at $1,187 per ounce by noon on Tuesday. After weeks of low prices and slow declines, seeing gold gain is encouraging to investors.
A Weaker Dollar Is Driving Gold Up
While it isn’t a dramatic shift, the dollar has lost roughly 0.3 percent of its value on the ICE U.S. Dollar Index. This is likely due to international uncertainty about Donald Trump’s impact on the global financial system. While his election has resulted in industrial optimism on the heels of promises to deregulate, global markets are more conservative about his impact than the domestic stock market.
This, in turn, has slightly weakened the dollar’s value when comparing it to several other major currencies. As gold and the dollar tend to trend inversely, the minor decline of the dollar prompted a gold price increase.
Despite this uptick, many market analysts predict that gold prices will remain low throughout early 2017, for a number of reasons. One of them, of course, is the potential for additional rate increases by the Federal Reserve. The stock market and the dollar both strengthened on news that the prime rate was being increased in December, which didn’t do much to help gold’s trading value. The potential for additional rate increases and other factors that could strengthen the dollar have many predicting that markets won’t support gold prices above $1,200 in the near future.
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The overall price of gold, however, continues to fluctuate up and down on any given day, as well as throughout the week. Savvy investors have realized that those fluctuations present an excellent opportunity to invest and capitalize on the changes in trading value for gold futures.
By trading via an online Forex platform, investors can leverage their capital to control the trading of more gold futures. Small rises and dips in the value of gold over a single day could result in profit for those who can see when to buy and when to sell to maximize the potential for profit.
