Precious metals are reeling today after the latest US employment report came back far better than expected. On the whole, this week was generally quiet from an economic standpoint, and that did not at all bode well for precious metals. In fact, as of the writing of this post, both spot gold and silver are below price points that have long been considered bottoming out points. It will be interesting to see if, over the week, spot values are able to bounce back, or if they will continue to feel the heavy selling pressure that has been a mainstay in the marketplace for the past month or more.

Geopolitics Take Center Stage This Week

Despite there being very few pieces of economic data for investors to talk about, the week was not totally quiet. Beginning late last week and intensifying over last weekend, many Hong Kong citizens had taken to the streets in order to protest what, according to them, is becoming an increasingly restrictive government. Though the protests have remained mostly peaceful, the fact that such unrest is happening in the financial capital of the world is and has been weighing on equity markets. This has provided a bit of support for precious metals, but has done more in the way of limiting selling pressure than it has contributed to any gains being regained.

The protests are still ongoing, but they have faded from the immediate attention of the market simply because of the lack of violence. Regardless, investors the world over will be interested in what is going on in Hong Kong as it will always have at least some sort of impact on the spot values of gold and silver as well as the progress, or lack thereof, of equity markets around the world.

US Employment Report Weighs on Gold and Silver

The biggest piece of economic data for the week came this morning in the form of the latest US Labor Department employment report for September. In the lead up to the report’s release, the market was expecting to hear that somewhere in the neighborhood of 215,000 jobs were added to the US economy last month. Unfortunately for gold and silver, the actual figures showed that nearly 250,000 new jobs were added to the US economy in September.

This news pushed the spot values of metals downward while simultaneously delivering US equities as well as the USD a nice upward boost. On the day, the USD Index has jumped upward by nearly 1.5% and is closing in on another, fresh 12-month high.