Gold and silver spot values are edging higher during the early morning hours on Monday, fueled by some bargain-hunting buying after the previous two weeks’ losses. Last week gave investors a lot of economic data to mull over, most of which is still being digested by the wider marketplace. Among last week’s flurry of economic activity was the latest European Central Bank meeting as well as the non-farm payrolls data for the US in May.

Despite a midweek employment report that fell far short of market expectations, Friday’s non-farms data ended up besting expectations, even if only slightly. The data showed that more than 215,000 jobs were added to the US economy in May, causing the US unemployment rate to decline to 6.3%. This news prompted US equities to make gains and put even more downward pressure on gold and silver spot values.

Quiet Week Ahead As Investors Continue To Analyze Last Week’s Data

As a result of today playing host to almost no economic data, investors are instead shifting their attention to last week’s European Central Bank policy meeting and what it might mean for precious metals further down the road. The meeting, which took place last Thursday, saw the ECB finally decide to implement fresh monetary stimulus in order to combat intensifying deflationary pressures. The new stimulus measures include reducing the EU refinancing rate by 10 basis points and introducing a -.1% deposit rate.

As you might have expected, the news initially provided the euro currency with a noticeable blow, but shortly thereafter things more or less corrected themselves. What was surprising, however, was that Thursday saw gold and silver spot values both noticeably improve. This was the only day of the week in which precious metals posted gains, but those gains were only short lived seeing as Friday saw spot values fall once more.

This week is already looking like it will weigh on precious metals simply because there is not very many fundamental inputs on the slate. With few noteworthy things to talk about, investors will instead focus on last week’s data and what it means for metals. As of now, most equity markets from around the world are improving and trending upwards, following in the footsteps of US stock markets towards the end of last week. It is hard to say whether gold and silver will continue to gain momentum or not, but as of now it seems more like the opposite will happen so long as stocks continue their ongoing rally.