Gold and silver are feeling downward pressure for a second consecutive day to close out what has been an eventful week. US Treasury prices have been seen rallying towards the end of this week and is causing some investors to pay attention. While there was a decent bit of economic data on the slate this week, most of it had a marginal impact on precious metal spot values.

As we head into the weekend investors will once more be paying attention to the crisis in Ukraine as it continues to develop. There have not been many new developments throughout the week, but tensions remain high as ever as a result of last week’s referendum vote that took place in the Donetsk region of the country. The referendum vote, which took place last Sunday, reportedly saw an overwhelming majority of voters choose that Donetsk should be an independent region. With this in mind, however, it is important to note that there are widespread allegations that the vote was rigged. For this reason and many more, investors will be paying close attention to anything and everything that takes place in Ukraine over the weekend.

Rising Treasury Note Prices Confuse Many

This week saw US Treasury bond prices rally and has, in turn, caused investors to pay very close attention. T-bond and note futures are at their highest points in months while yields are at their lowest points. When you take note of rising Treasury bond prices in conjunction with a small rally in US equities, it is looking more and more like the US economy is continuing along its road to recovery. This has also caused a large number of people to believe that the Fed will continue to taper Quantitative Easing throughout the remainder of the year. As you might have expected, this news is only working to put more selling pressure on gold and silver.

Having said that, however, there is a growing sense of uncertainty spreading across the market and it is very likely that it will cause some investors to turn to safe-haven precious metals. If we continue to see signs of an improving US economy, however, it is more likely that precious metals will continue to feel the selling pressure that we are witnessing today.

At the end of the day there is no real way of predicting what direction precious metals will head in over the next few weeks. Price action has been erratic and unpredictable over the last few weeks and it is looking like such will remain the case for the foreseeable future.