Precious metals began the day on Tuesday losing considerable value, but by the time things wrapped up both gold and silver were on the positive side of things. Like the last few weeks, this one has already been incredibly quiet and mostly void of economic data. Fortunately for investors, that will likely change upon the beginning of next week thanks to the plethora of month-end economic data that is expected to be released.

This week, also like the last few weeks, will see investors continue to focus on what is happening across Europe. Greece and their numerous creditors are still trying to hammer out the finer details of a bailout extension deal, but that situation has mostly faded from the headlines. Unfortunately for precious metals spot values, the fact that things have been so quiet have not been too beneficial.

Janet Yellen Addresses Congress

A few times every year, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve meets with members of Congress to basically give a rundown of how the US economy is doing and where it is headed in the near future. Today was the first of two days’ worth of testimony and as you could have probably guessed, investors were paying close attention.

In her remarks, Janet Yellen maintained that while the US economy continues to grow, interest rate hikes are not going to be implemented just for the sake of doing so. Instead, Yellen said that the prospect of interest rate hikes will be discussed and decided upon on a “meeting-to-meeting” basis throughout the course of this year. In all, Yellen’s remarks were not deemed as being overly hawkish nor overly dovish in their content. Because of this, the marketplace did not really react. Tomorrow sees Yellen confront a US House panel, and you can bet that investors will be paying attention. With that said, I do not expect that Yellen’s remarks tomorrow will differ greatly from what she had to say today.

In other news, this time from Europe, it is being reported that EU finance ministers and Greece government officials are apparently seeing eye-to-eye with regard to debt reduction measures and economic reforms needed to be enacted by Greece. As this situation continues to play out, we will keep a close eye on all developments across Greece and the rest of Europe. I have a feeling that Greece will be right back in the headlines before too long.