After losing considerable value on Tuesday, precious metals bounced back, albeit mildly, on Wednesday. As of the writing of this post, gold and silver spot values were trading upward ever so slightly. This week, shortened though it is, is set to bring about a good amount of economic data, especially from the United States.
Yesterday got the shortened week started, and the data that was made public came in mostly upbeat. As a result, the US Dollar Index rose to a 13-month high while the spot values of gold and silver took huge hits. Though today provided a bit of respite, the rest of the week may not be so accommodating. On Thursday, the ECB is set to convene for their monthly policy meeting while the all-important US jobs figures from August are set to be made public sometime on Friday.
All Eyes Shift Towards Thursday, Friday
All things considered, today was probably the quietest day we are going to experience all week long. Stock indexes and spot values didn’t do all that much moving, and the reason is more than likely due to investors holding their positions until the all-important data expected to be due out in the forthcoming days.
The European Central Bank monthly policy meeting will kick off before US markets open tomorrow, and what happens at that meeting will be especially important to the investing world. If you can recall to a few weeks ago in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, ECB president Mario Draghi stated that he and the rest of the ECB are still considering the implementation of further monetary stimulus. While it is not widely expected that such stimulus measures will be announced this week, the meeting and post-meeting statements may provide a bit of insight with regard to where the ECB plans on heading with their region’s monetary policy.
On Friday, the market’s attention will shift towards the United States’ employment data for the month of August. Despite the fact that August was a particularly slow summer month, preliminary expectations are that at least 200,000 new jobs were created. If Friday’s figures meet or exceed this mark, you can expect that the selling pressure will once again be piled on top of precious metals. After all, Janet Yellen and the rest of the Fed have stated time and time again that they need to see marked improvement on the part of the US labor situation before they even think about raising interest rates.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of this week pans out. After the last few weeks have been extremely quiet, all of the activity we are witnessing during this 4-day trading session is coming as bit of a shock to many. With that said, however, it is extremely likely that things will only continue to pick up over the course of the coming days, weeks, and months.