Gold and silver spot values are not really doing much moving during the early parts of the day on Monday. For the second consecutive week last week, gold and silver finished the 5-day trading session having made some decent, last-minute gains. This time around, however, precious metals are not conceding value as quickly as they did a week ago. With very few pieces of economic data expected to be made public this week, it will be interesting to see if gold can hang on to levels above $1,180 or if another pullback is lying in wait.

In case you missed it, the latter part of last week did not bring about too much in the way of markets-moving economic data. Things were generally quiet and, apart from the weekly jobless claims report, there wasn’t much of any economic data for investors to mull over and discuss. The weekly jobless claims report was especially important because, after the poor employment data from October, investors are looking towards every other relatable piece of data in order to garner a better idea of how well the US employment sector is faring. Much to the dismay of many people, however, there were far more unemployment claims last week than expected. This news helped give gold and silver a bit of a boost to finish the week.

OPEC May Have To Act In Near Future

With the spot value of crude oil still sitting near multi-year lows, it is a growing belief that OPEC will soon have to take decisive action in order to pull up spot values. As it stands, crude oil has been on an almost consistent decline for the past three or more weeks. For precious metals, this most recent decline has pulled them downwards as well because crude oil was acting as a weight on the value of all raw commodities.

With so much oil in the current supply, OPEC will likely have to take some action aimed at limiting the oil on the market today. Without this type of action, many people are under the impression that crude oil will continue to decline over the coming weeks. As of now, however, a lot of investors are making bets that OPEC will take decisive action and that crude oil prices will appreciate sometime in the near future.

For precious metals, there is no saying for sure what the duration of this week has in store. There isn’t much economic data, so it is really just a toss-up with regard to whether the week sees gold and silver appreciate or if action in currency and equity markets will drive spot values downward once again.