Gold and silver are both continuing to feel downside technical selling pressure, despite this morning’s 1st quarter GDP report coming back weaker than expected. The situation in Ukraine is continuing to catch a lot of the market’s attention, but is slowly but surely being overshadowed by the plethora of economic data making its way to the headlines this week. Apart from the GDP report today, investors are also concerning themselves with the conclusion of the latest FOMC meeting, which is expected to happen sometime this afternoon. The market will more than likely react to what Janet Yellen has to say in her post-meeting statement, but that much remains to be seen.
Economic Data Just Heating Up
Though this week is expected to be a busy one from an economic data standpoint, most of that data is not due out until this afternoon through Friday. The United State’s 1st-quarter GDP report was made public earlier this morning, but what it had to say was that GDP growth so far this year has been marginal, at best. The GDP report showed that year on year growth from January to March had only improved by .1%, a number that is in stark contrast to the 1%+ growth expectations from the marketplace. It was widely expected that a low GDP report would yield an increase in precious metals spot values, but such has not been the case as a majority of the marketplace is holding their positions until the Fed has concludes their meeting.
If the FOMC decide to further taper Quantitative Easing, spot gold and silver may not see any gains as a result of the weaker GDP report. At this point in the early afternoon, it is difficult to determine just how the FOMC is feeling about the economy and whether or not they think further tapering is the right decision to make.
As we look ahead, there is a bit of key Chinese manufacturing data due out on Thursday. As a result of recent pieces of economic data from China being poor at best, the investing world will be interested to see what this latest report on China’s manufacturing data has to say. Finally, Friday is when the US Labor Department’s latest jobs readings are due out. It is expected that we will see more than 200,000 non-farm payrolls added to the economy during April, but no one is holding their breath. As it stands, the duration of this week is gearing up to be fairly exciting.