Precious metals finished the trading week in poor fashion by losing considerable value for a second straight week. Despite there not being too much in the way of economic data made public this week, investors have had plenty to mull over. For one, a few central banks made surprise decisions that took the marketplace off guard, but not only that, some employment information from the United States was of particular importance to investors.

Another theme this week was the rally on the part of crude oil. After more than a few months of consecutive price drops, oil seems to have gained some momentum and is trading higher. How long that will last remains to be seen, but we will keep an eye on it going forward.

US Jobs Data Beats Expectations

This week was always going to be slow from an economic standpoint due to the fact that not too many pieces of economic data were expected to be released. With that said, however, today brought about what many are calling the most im0portant data point of the month. January’s employment report was expected to see non-farm payrolls grow by more than 235,000, but the actual figures showed non-farm payroll growth of just shy of 260,000.

This data immediately doomed precious metals to a dismal final day of the week. As you could have probably guessed, stock markets shot upward on the news that January’s employment data was better than expected. Whether stocks will continue making gains or concede value once more remains to be seen.

In other news this week, some central banks decided to make some policy shifts. First, it was the Australian Central Bank who decided to slash interest rates in an effort to stimulate the Australian economy. In the immediate aftermath of this move, the Australian Dollar fell to a 5.5 year low against the US Dollar.

China, only a day later, announced that it would be reducing its reserve requirement ratio for domestic banks. This move was also made in an effort to stimulate growth for an economy that has been really struggling over the course of the past year or more. It will truly be interesting to see if these measures will do anything in the way of improving economic conditions or if things will continue the way they have been for the past few months.