Gold and silver experienced mixed results this week as gold posted small gains while silver lost a bit of value. The two marquis stories of the week included a Chinese GDP report and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke addressing the US Congress.

The US Dollar Index did not help precious metals out at all this week as it fluctuated quite considerably. One day it was up and the next it was down which meant investors had a very hard time reading the market.

Chinese Economic Data

While the Chinese GDP report was a bit disappointing, you have to take into consideration that China’s economy on a bad day is better than most other economies on a good day. The first bit of data from this GDP report indicated that Chinese GDP grew by about 7.5% on an annual basis. This number seems like a positive one but it was actually a smaller of a gain than originally anticipated.

The next bit of news was that China’s month to month GDP has decreased for a second consecutive quarter. This is not a good sign for the future and the fact that industrial output for June was also lower than expected in China it is safe to say the whole report was fairly disappointing.

Ben Bernanke to Address Congress

Apart from the Chinese data that was due out on Monday, investors and market watchers were also looking forward to Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, and his address to the US Congress. On Wednesday he spoke before the House of Representatives while he was scheduled to speak in front of the US Senate on Thursday.

In his report Bernanke indicated that monetary policy, specifically Quantitative Easing, is by no means on a predetermined path to being wound down or phased out. He actually confirmed that if the US economy were to take a turn for the worse in the coming months the Fed has no problem considering the possibility of boosting government bond-buying (Quantitative Easing).

This news was originally perceived as positive for gold and silver, but as Bernanke took questions in the wake of the speech, all gold and silver’s morning gains were returned. Bernanke’s address to the Senate on Thursday yielded about the same remarks as were made on Wednesday.

Weekly Move

Gold started the week at $1,286 and by closing time on Friday was sitting at $1,295.

Silver, on the other hand, started the week at $19.98 and by closing time on Friday had lost a little over 30 cents to be sitting at $19.58.