As of mid-morning on Thursday, gold and silver are both trending ever so slightly upward. All in all, the first half of this week has been quiet and mostly devoid of any major geopolitical or economic talking points. Yesterday was Veterans Day/Armistice Day in much of the world, so a quiet trading atmosphere became almost silent. For gold and silver, yesterday’s inactivity saw bargain-hunting buying pull spot values up by small, but encouraging margins. At this point, any day that sees gold or silver end in the green is a positive day.
In case you missed it, the end of last week brought about a number of talking points for investors. On Thursday, the European Central Bank met for their monthly policy meeting, and what they had to saw brought about mostly disappointment from a market that was expecting to hear of a shift in policy. By the time the meeting had wrapped up on Thursday afternoon, not only did the ECB fail to shift monetary policy, president Mario Draghi delivered an almost wholly dovish statement to the media and the public. All told, last Thursday’s ECB meeting had a negligible impact on the precious metals market.
Employment Data Falls Short of Expectations
Last Friday, the market was dealt perhaps the biggest piece of data for the week in the form of October’s US employment report. Due to September’s job-growth report showing that nearly 250,000 new jobs were created, most analysts had expected that at least 230,000 were created in October. These figures, though robust, were not too far out of the ordinary and were deemed to be quite achievable by many investors and experts alike.
By the time the data was made public, however, the marketplace was mildly shocked to see that only about 213,000 new jobs were added to the US economy during October. This poor data ended up hurting the US equity and currency markets while simultaneously awarding gold and silver a much-needed boost. Unfortunately, by Monday, most of the gains made by precious metals were parred.
Looking Ahead to the End of a Slow Week
As we site here on Wednesday, looking ahead to the final two days of the week, I am afraid to say that investors can expect much of the same from an economic and geopolitical standpoint. Apart from the weekly employment report due out on Friday, the market is not expecting too much in the way of markets-moving economic data. This could potentially bode well for gold and silver, whose spot values have seen slight boosts as a result of bargain-hunting buying the last few days.
As it stands, the market is extremely bearish and quite adversarial to precious metals. Unless something big changes, it is likely to remain that way too.
