Precious metals have bounced around quite a bit this week, but just like the last two Friday’s, both gold and silver are trending noticeably upward. Today, metals are faring well due to some interest rate news out of China. On the whole, this week was a tad bit quieter than usual, though it must be said that Thursday brought about a good amount of economic data from the US, Asia, and Europe. From the US, most of the data was deemed as being upbeat.
In addition to this, we saw the focus of the marketplace fixate upon Europe as there was quite a bit of economic activity stemming from that region this week. During the first parts of the week, in fact, investors were preoccupied with comments from European Central Bank president Mario Draghi. In his remarks to members of the media, Draghi stated that the ECB has not yet discounted the possible use of quantitative easing measures in an effort to spur European economic growth. Though most people were unsurprised by Draghi’s comments, it is a certainty that the upcoming ECB meeting will be hawked over even more so than usual.
Market Mulls Over a Plethora of Economic Data
It is no secret that the last few weeks have been somewhat slow from an economic data standpoint in the United States. With few reports outside of the weekly jobless claims report for investors to mull over and discuss, it should come as no surprise that market conditions have been as quiet and subdued as they have been for the past half a month or more.
Yesterday saw the activity level pick up a bit simply due to the fact that a few pieces of markets-moving economic data was made public. Highlighting Thursday’s data was a report claiming that factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic US is growing at rates unseen in more than 20 years. Adding to this was an existing home sales report that showed existing home sales in October were at their highest point in more than a year. As you could have probably guessed, this upbeat economic data gave stocks a bit of a boost and weighed on the gains that were being made by gold and silver through much of the day on Thursday.
In other news that is just trickling in, it was reported that the central bank of China announced that it will be slashing interest rates in an effort to rectify their ailing economy. This news immediately bolstered gold and silver and is helping them add value today. Hopefully, when next week rolls around, we will uncover just a bit more information regarding interest rates in China as well as some more information regarding interest rates in the United States as well. In case you couldn’t tell, the market is slowly but surely refocusing on interest rates both in the US and around the world as their movement will have some sort of impact on the precious metals market.