Both gold and silver are slightly down from their opening positions, just a day before a heavy stream of economic data is due to be released. Tomorrow marks the release of the Federal Reserve’s beige book while the rest of the week is full of economic data from the United States. Thursday will see the European Central Bank meet for their monthly policy meeting, though no major policy changes are expected to be announced. Rather, the ECB meeting will likely see ECB president Mario Draghi comment on how the recent decision to lower the EU’s key lending rate has worked out thus far.

Beige Book, Other Economic Data

The Federal Reserve’s beige book is more or less an analysis from the Fed with regard to economic activity and economic growth. Investors are looking forward to hearing what the beige book has to say as any indication of a robust US economy may advance the notion that the FOMC will taper QE sooner rather than later. Due out the day after the beige book is a US GDP report which will serve as an additional resource for investors to gauge the strength of the US economy.

Finally, this week will be brought to a close with the release of the latest US jobs data. Should all three days’ data be positive it is likely that investors will believe more fervently in the notion that QE may be tapered before the year’s end. As the year’s end fast-approaches, investors the world over are obsessing over when the FOMC will reduce its Quantitative Easing monetary policy. The upcoming December FOMC meeting is when many investors will expect QE to be reduced, though other are not expecting any changes to QE until January or February, at the very earliest.

Though the marketplace was quiet today, expect things to pick up in the latter few days of the week as more and more economic data is going to be released.