Though both gold and silver posted substantial gains yesterday, both metals more or less conceded those gains on a day of heavy losses for gold and silver. As the fear that the Fed may taper QE in the near future spreads across the marketplace, many investors are ridding themselves of their precious metals holdings.
Today emitted a hefty amount of economic data for investors to mull over, but the week is not quite finished as a key US employment report for November is expected to be released.
Upbeat Economic Data
Today’s economic data once again beat the expectations of the marketplace, something that was always going to work against gold and silver. The US GDP report came in stronger than anticipated while this week’s jobless claims dropped. Factory orders in the US were reported to have declined, but apart from that solitary report the rest were wholly positive.
This day of strong economic data will likely only further the belief that the Fed will begin to taper QE in the near future. What does the near future mean exactly? At this point it is hard to say, but many investors are pointing towards the December FOMC meeting as a possible starting point for the tapering of Quantitative Easing. Despite that, there also exists a strong contingent of investors who believe that QE will not be touched until some time in 2014. Despite all this speculation, the only time when investors will find out any concrete information with regard to the tapering of QE is at the FOMC meeting scheduled to kick off on December 16th.
In other news today, the European Central Bank convened for their monthly policy meeting. Though no major changes were made to lending rates or monetary policy in the EU, investors were tuning in to what president Mario Draghi had to say nonetheless. Draghi did not say anything overly shocking, and in the aftermath of his commentary the euro currency rose slightly.
Friday is likely going to be another busy day, as investors from all over the world will be awaiting the November jobs data from the US.