Gold Spot Price Open: $1,154

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,160

Change in Gold Spot Price: +$6

Silver Spot Price Open: $15.98

Silver Spot Price Close: $16.27

Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.29

Gold and silver opened the first official day of 2017 trading in impressive fashion, even with some strong US economic data having been dealt. When all was said and done, gold ended up gaining about 6 dollars while silver gained almost 30 cents on the day. Platinum and palladium both had especially great starts to the week before conceding value and more or less breaking even at day’s end.

ISM Manufacturing Data Comes Back Positively

As we expected, the first week of 2017 trading was always going to bring with it a good bit of economic data from the US and other economies around the world. According to the Institute for Supply Management, the US manufacturing index for December ticked upward by more than was expected. According to the ISM, the manufacturing index moved up to 54.7% from a reading in November that was just barely above 53%. For those who might be unaware, any manufacturing index reading above 50% indicates that the sector of the economy in question is growing. On the contrary, a reading below the 50% mark suggests that that section of the economy is experiencing contraction.

This data, on its face, was great, but when you dig even deeper you will find that this is the best single-month report we have seen in more than 2 years. What’s more, December marked the 4th month in a row where the ISM manufacturing index bumped upward.

The manufacturing index records the performance of 18 different manufacturing industries. Of these 18, 11 experienced growth while 6 experienced contraction. One industry remained more or less stagnant.

USD Index Highest In More Than Decade

The USD Index, which measures the greenback against a basket of rival currencies, moved to its highest level since 2002 on the back of Monday’s better than expected ISM data. The euro, in particular, backed down dramatically against the USD. The European currency also fell to its lowest point against the Dollar since 2002. There is a feeling that the Dollar, like stocks, is soon going to fall victim to a corrective pullback of sorts, but that much has not really come close to reality quite yet. It will be interesting to see if Donald Trump’s ascension to the seat of President will have any impact on that.

OPEC Cut Goes Into Effect; Crude Rallies

A previously agreed upon deal between OPEC member nations and some oil-producing nations that are not a part of OPEC went into effect on Tuesday without any glitches. There were plenty of people who had doubts with regard to whether or not those who participated in drafting the deal would follow through with actually sticking to the agreed production cuts.

So far, so good seems to be the word around town as the oil production cut is in effect and is already bringing crude oil prices higher. Even despite the upbeat US economic data, gold and silver prices are benefitting from the elevated nature of crude oil prices as well as some bargain-hunting buying to begin the year. With so many people feeling as though stocks are about to see their rally end, there is a similar feeling that recently subdued metals’ values are about to be on the rise once more. Of course, there is no surefire way of seeing if either of those two things will actually happen.

Wrap-Up

All in all, Tuesday got what is sure to be an exciting week off to a decently active start. There was some economic data floated around and, in addition to that, currency markets saw a lot of action. As the week moves forward, the level of activity will increase steadily, especially as more and more pieces of noteworthy economic data are released. What this all means for precious metals is tough to say, but gold and silver did get things started off positively.