Gold and silver, after declining drastically during the early morning hours, are adding value at a nice rate as of the writing of this post. Gold and silvers’ gains are being attributed to bargain-hunting buying and increased physical demand as a result of spot values being so low at the present moment in time. In all, this week did not bring about too much in the way of markets-moving economic data. While this fact did not really hurt precious metals, it didn’t provide them with any lasting boost or anything like that.

Bank’s Alleged to Be Involved in Fixing of Exchange Markets

One of the only major news stories made public this week came Wednesday in the form of a multinational investigation with regard to supposed exchange market fixings by some of the world’s largest banks. The investigation, which was led by Swiss, UK, and US authorities, alleges that Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Citibank, JP Morgan, and a few other banks participated in the fixing of foreign exchange markets with the goal of boosting their own bottom lines. A settlement between authorities and the banks was reached, and totaled in the $3.4 billion range.

This news did not have any major impact on global financial markets, but is still something investors want to pay close attention to. According to multiple sources, the entirety of the investigation is not complete, so it is thought that we will hear some more information in the coming days and weeks.

As we look ahead to next week, it is likely that things will remain fairly quiet and subdued should we not hear of any new geopolitical or economic developments. For gold and silver, there is no real way to tell what this means, but with a market as bearish as this, it is likely that things will only get worse for the metals. The real test will be to see whether gold and silver will be able to hang on to today’s gains or if we will see a repeat of what happened this Monday and metals lose all of the value that they had gained.