Gold and silver spot values have steadied this morning after losing much of the value gained last week on Monday. To be truthful, the first few days have brought about little economic data for investors to latch on to and talk about, so we are seeing much of the market back to focusing on currency and equity markets. All in all, the current market atmosphere is bearish, and thus bad for gold and silver. Not helping precious metals at all is the fact that crude oil prices have been incredibly unstable and have acted as a deadweight on the value of all commodities.

In case you missed it, the end of last week brought about a good amount of economic data for investors to mull over, discuss, and react to. On Wednesday, the global marketplace was preoccupied with digesting the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States. Republicans seized control of both the House and Senate, and this news ended up giving equities as well as the Dollar a bit of a boost. The reason for this is because Republicans are generally regarded as being better for economic growth and better for business. As you could have probably guessed, the election results only made matters worse for precious metals.

On Thursday, the highly anticipated European Central Bank meeting took place, but it failed to bring about any shifts in policy. All in all, Thursday’s ECB meeting was more or less a non-factor and did not really have too much of an impact on the marketplace.

Finally, on Friday, the market was greeted with October’s US employment report. According to the report, only about 213,000 new jobs were created during the month of October. This figure is a far cry from the 230,000 new jobs that were expected and much further away from last month’s jobs report, which indicated that nearly 250,000 jobs were created in September.

Looking Ahead to an Uneventful Week

As we look ahead to the rest of the week, there really isn’t much for investors to prepare for from an economic standpoint. There is very little data set to be made public in the US and Europe, and what little data does get published will likely have only a marginal impact on global markets. Because of the lack of economic talking points, investors will see their attention directed towards equity and currency markets as well as the progress of crude oil prices.

For the past few weeks now, crude oil has been on the decline and is not doing metals any favors. With Iran seemingly on the verge of reaching a nuclear deal with Western nations, the value of crude oil may plunge even further. This is just one more factor that is really and effectively impeding the forward movement of gold and silver.

There is a growing belief that, should spot values continue to fall, bargain hunting buying may become a feature in the market. Unfortunately, and in my opinion, I do not think bargain hunting alone will be enough to push spot values upward, at least not for any extended period of time. With that said, however, there is no saying for sure what will happen over the course of the coming days and weeks, and for that reason, we will just have to continue keeping a close eye on all the outside markets that have really been pressuring metals.