Precious metals have begun this week in less than impressive fashion. After declining considerably on Tuesday, the bounce back we witnessed today saw only marginal amounts of the value lost added back. Unfortunately for precious metals, the duration of this week is not looking like it will be any better than the past two days have been.
Apart from the flurry of economic activity, the market has also placed its attention on the crisis in Ukraine yet again. Just today, it was announced that a ceasefire agreement was reached between Ukrainian military forces, Russian military forces, and the pro-Russian rebels who have been wreaking havoc across much of Eastern Ukraine. While this news was initially encouraging for equity markets, it was shortly thereafter realized that the ceasefire might not actually be real. Now, there is no sure way of telling what is going on in Ukraine, and we will just have to wait and see how the rest of the week pans out.
ECB Meeting, Jobs Data Preoccupies Investors
This week is so important for investors due to the flurry of economic activity taking place. Tomorrow, the European Central Bank will meet for their monthly policy meeting and the eyes of the world will be fixated upon them. The reason for this is due to the fact that many investors are anticipated fresh monetary stimulus measures to be announced. This is the case simply because the EU is struggling economically, and is in need of a further boost.
Though it is not clear whether tomorrow will actually bring about a monetary policy announcement, the eyes of the investing world will be fixated upon the meeting regardless.
On Friday, the attention of investors will turn to the US and the release of the latest employment figures from August. As it stands, the market is expecting that more than 200,000 jobs were added to the economy last month. If those figures are met or exceeded, it is very likely that the selling pressure will only be piled on to precious metals. Also if these figures are released and live up to expectations, you can expect that more investors will be under the impression that interest rates in the US will be hiked sooner rather than later.
Though it is still not very clear how the duration of this week will pan out, it is clear that we are in for an exciting last two days of the trading week.
