Gold and silver have gotten out to a slow start this week, which is the last week of a turbulent October. The Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve is scheduled to have their meeting this week, beginning on Tuesday and wrapping up sometime on Wednesday. In addition to the FOMC meeting, several pieces of US economic data will be making their way to the public this week.

At this juncture, every investor is attempting to assess the strength of the US economy as it is unclear because of the government shutdown.

FOMC Meeting Implications

The Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week means that investors and market experts will go about being their speculative selves. Though the meeting itself is not expected to yield any out of the ordinary conclusions, it will be important to pay attention to in order to look for clues regarding future monetary policy changes.

Quantitative Easing, the Fed’s monthly bond-buying initiative, has been expected to be reduced for the past few months, though the recent government shutdown more or less derailed that thought. Because QE helps keep the US economy moving, and it is expected that overall economic growth for the 4th quarter of this year is going to be negatively affected by the shutdown, most experts agree that the Fed will have no real room to alter QE.

This meeting may be even more inconclusive than past FOMC meetings because Ben Bernanke is not scheduled to address the public. Nonetheless, the meeting’s notes will be released and investors will closely analyze them. If QE is retained like it is expected to be, this will be an underlying bullish factor for metals. However, if investors catch wind of the Fed possibly tapering QE before the end of the year or early next year, this could become a bearish factor for metals.

In addition to the FOMC meeting, economic data will be released all week long. Among the data is October PPI reading as well as the most recent retail sales reports. Though these reports are not expected to shift the precious metals market too much, they will be paid attention to nonetheless. With the US Dollar on the decline, it is hard to get a grip on the current state of the US economy, and for this reason economic reports are of extreme importance.