Silver prices turn negative today, better data leads to taper concerns

London (Nov 27)  Silver followed the exact same trend as gold today. Started off with a pop around sunrise and then fell throughout the rest of the day. Silver futures were trading as high as $20.10/oz before turning south. Now, they’re trading down $0.10 on the day at $19.79/oz. What caused the move lower? Better than expected data.  

The last full trading day of the week started off with good data. Jobless claims fell, consumer confidence beat expectations and durable goods orders didn’t fall as much as expected. All around – not too bad. Oh, and Bitcoin surged well above $1,000 per coin. What I would give to have snatched some of those up when it first started. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Anyways, all the positive economic data has investors talking taper again. Like they talk about anything else. Expectations have been for the Fed to wait until next year to start a taper, but there is a chance they could get the taper ball rolling next month. If they don’t do it in December, most think it won’t happen until March or April. Why the three month wait you ask? Easy, Washington.

Politicians will be back at doing what they do best early next year. Nothing. Long-term budget and debt ceiling issues are expected to get tackled. Will anything get done? One can only hope. Republicans are still angry over Obamacare and now the Iran deal has them feeling like the U.S. looked weak.

And it’s an election year. It will be interesting to say the least. I would be shocked if it all went smoothly and politicians actually did their jobs. Expect the usual last minute negotiations and the like.

Until the taper issue is resolved, it will always hang over silver and gold investors. For now, we wait until November’s jobs report is released and then the Fed’s December meeting.