Gold and silver are trading down midway through the day mostly thanks to a strong US Dollar and some upbeat US employment data. Investors are still anxiously awaiting the release of the latest FOMC minutes that are due out later this afternoon.
The rest of this week is going to be full of activity as there is plenty of economic data and noteworthy events for investors to pay attention to.
Upbeat Employment Data Boosts US Dollar
Before markets even opened in the United States gold and silver were already facing an uphill battle due to the US Dollar reaching month and a half highs. The Dollar gained even more strength when the ADP employment report was released and posted job additions that were well beyond market expectations. Officially, most people were expecting to see about 200,000 jobs added this past December. According to ADP, almost 240,000 jobs were added in December, handily beating the expectations of the market.
This news pushed the US Dollar up even further and ended up putting an increased amount of downward pressure on gold and silver. Additional US employment data is due out on Friday, including the non-farm payrolls data from this past December. Like the ADP report, the non-farms data is expected to show a 200,000 payroll increase from a month ago. If this is so, this week’s data will only act as a complement to somewhat consistently strong employment data posted over the past few months.
Other noteworthy events happening this week include the European Central Bank monthly policy meeting which is scheduled to take place tomorrow. There are no major policy changes expected to take place at this month’s meeting, but that will not keep investors from maintaining a close watch over the meeting’s proceedings. Also due out later this week are reports on Chinese trade and inflation levels. Chinese stocks have been under-performing as of late and as such investors will be hoping for some help from this week’s reports.