Gold and silver are declining once more on Friday after isolated gains were made only a day ago. All in all, the past week or so has been pretty harsh on precious metals. This week did not emit any major or shocking news stories, but rather saw investors focus heavily on last week’s plethora of data.

Now, with November halfway completed, the marketplace has turned its attention to the possibility of the Fed reducing monetary policy before the year’s end.

Strong Economic Data, Dovish Statements

As is typically the case, stronger economic data out of the United States has caused the US Dollar to rise rapidly at the expense of the euro currency and precious metals. Since the beginning of last week, improved GDP readings and strong employment reports have been a mainstay in the United States. All of this positive economic data has hurt gold and silver, but both metals experienced a bit of respite only a day ago.

Janet Yellen may be a name you are unfamiliar with now, but seeing as she is the running favorite to replace Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairperson that will all change soon. On Wednesday of this week she was scheduled to give a prepared statement to the US Congressional Banking Committee and what she had to say surprised some people. In her statement Ms. Yellen made it clear that if she was granted the position of Fed chairwoman she would retain all of Bernanke’s current monetary policies. She explained that the US economy is still not reaching its full potential while also saying that the unemployment rate still has room to decline further. Both of these reasons are strong enough for her to see the retention of Quantitative Easing as a necessary move.

Her sentiments were the same a day later when she was questioned by some of the United States’ congressional leaders. Her statements were perceived as being dovish to gold and silver and ushered in a day of modest gains yesterday. Unfortunately, however, the gold and silver bears are still in control of the market, seen in the refreshed decline gold and silver experienced as soon as the market opened on Friday.

In other news, a weaker than expected 3rd quarter GDP reading for the EU makes last week’s ECB decision to cut Europe’s key lending rate look like the best possible move that could have been made. We will continue to monitor European economic activity in an effort to see if the newly lowered lending rate will translate into economic growth like so many hope.