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July 31st Silver Market Update

Gold and silver spot values are trending downward for yet another day as a result of a positive week of US economic data, While there have already been a number of upbeat reports made public this week, there are more on the way. In addition to all this, there are quite a few geopolitical events that are continuously catching the attention of investors the world over.

US Stocks, Dollar Rise After Positive Data

This week is being touted as one of the busiest and most important weeks of the summer from an economic data standpoint. Already made public was the United States second-quarter GDP report from this year. Beating expectations easily, the report showed that the US economy grew by more than 4% on an annualized basis this second quarter. As you could have probably guessed, this data worked to boost US equity markets as well as the US Dollar.

Shortly after the GDP data was made public on Wednesday, the FOMC concluded their most recent policy meeting. That said, the FOMC offered very little in the way of markets-moving data as they announced their plans to continue with the tapering of Quantitative Easing. Though investors were hoping to find out some more information with regard to the potential for raised interest rates in the United States, the Fed provided little insight on the matter.

Today, the positive US economic data continued as it was reported that July played host to the fewest number of unemployment benefit applications in the last 8 years or more. Rounding out the week tomorrow will be the US employment report for July. As of now, it is widely believed that job growth in July will have exceeded 230,000. After last month saw more than 280,000 jobs added to the economy, it only makes sense that this month’s job growth is also expected to be robust. If things go as planned through the last day of the week, it is extremely likely that precious metals will continue to trend downwards.

At this point, the only factors helping precious metals at all is the wide variety of geopolitical tensions around the world. With violence raging in Ukraine and Gaza, there is a strong possibility that safe-haven demand for gold and silver will once again play a role in the marketplace. For now, however, most ongoing geopolitical situations are sitting comfortably on the back-burner of the marketplace’s attention.