Precious metals are trending slightly downward to finish this 5-day trading session, but as for weekly gains or losses are concerned, it seems as though metals are poised for this to be a second consecutive week of gains. There hasn’t been too much in the way of economic data made public, but what data has hit the market has acted as a support system for precious metals. Now, it seems as though the metals bulls are gaining momentum and might ride that momentum into next week.

A major theme in the marketplace throughout much of this and last week has been the volatility of US equity indexes. With stocks jumping all over the place, a lot of risk-aversion has entered the marketplace and fueled safe-haven demand for gold and silver. It isn’t just volatile equities that have been instilling fear into the marketplace either, as a number of other factors have done their part to really push gold and silver forward.

A Bad Week of Economic Data Across the Board

Though there wasn’t all that much economic data made public this week, what data did hit the marketplace was almost wholly negative. For one, data out of the European Union indicated that industrial production across the region continues to lag. Not only that, but the economic growth of periphery nations such as Spain and Greece is being cited as a factor slowing the economic progress of the region as a whole.

Now, the attention of investors from around the world is slowly but surely turning to the European Central Bank in order to see what, if anything, they will do in order to combat rising deflationary pressures as well as slowing economic growth. If something isn’t done soon, the whole of the EU will continue to suffer.

While the European Union has been playing host to poor economic data for some time now, the data emitted by the United States has generally been upbeat. This week, however, the story was a bit different as a few economic reports indicated that all might not be well with the US economy. Not only were retail sales reported as being down in September, but so too was the PPI of the US. This news only acted as a buffer for the safe-haven demand of precious metals, which, like I have been saying, is on the up and up as of late. It will be interesting to see what the next few weeks have in store for gold and silver spot values, but from the looks of it, with gold bulls gaining momentum, things are looking up.