Gold Spot Price Open: $1,240

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,243

Change in Gold Spot Price: +$3

Silver Spot Price Open: $20.22

Silver Spot Price Close: $20.14

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.08

Gold and silver experienced mixed results on Thursday despite heavy pressure being placed on metals from outside markets. When all was said and done, gold gained about three dollars while silver replicated yesterday’s loss of 8 cents.

US stock markets performed well today despite profit-taking in response to recent gains. The recurring theme this week with both US and European equity indexes is multi-year highs and overall performance unlike anything investors have seen in quite some time. Positive US economic data this week more or less mitigated last Friday’s disappointing employment report and gave more strength to the bullish run being made by US stocks. Until stock markets both domestic and abroad cool off it will be incredibly difficult for precious metals to maintain any sort of elongated positive run of form.

China’s equivalent to the Federal Reserve’s beige book was released today and painted a picture of a China where loans are not as easy to obtain as they once were. Even though the Chinese economy continues to grow at a somewhat acceptable rate, credit issues could become a problem for Asia’s largest nation.

Consumer inflation in Europe was reported as having risen between October and November but is still well below the 2% inflation rate deemed optimal by the ECB. Over the period of October to November inflation rose by just under half a percent while on the year it was up by almost a full percentage point. So long as deflation does not enter the picture in the foreseeable future it is looking like Europe may finally make a full recovery from the worldwide recession that began in 2008.  As we head into the last day of the week, investors will be hoping for some type of turnaround to revert the last few days’ losses.