Gold Spot Price Open: $1,198

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,213

Change in Gold Spot Price: +$15

Silver Spot Price Open: $17.17

Silver Spot Price Close: $17.54

Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.37

Precious metals gained on Tuesday thanks to a combination of rocky stock markets and a USD Index that seems to have topped out. When all was said and done, gold gained 15 dollars while silver gained in upwards of 40 cents. Platinum and palladium were both up, but palladium’s 14 dollar gain far outpaced that of platinum, which actualy ended up losing a dollar.

Stock Market Jitters, Weaker USD Index

As was mentioned above, the combo of jittery stocks and a weaker Dollar helped push precious metals higher. The weaker Dollar is being largely attributed to the asset having reached its market peak. Now that it has gone as far as it can upward, it follows that we are scheduled for a corrective pullback of sorts. That is exactly what we are seeing today. How far this corrective pullback will go remains to be seen, but for now it is a huge positive for gold and silver spot values.

Stock markets were also bouncing around for much of Tuesday thanks, in large part, to renewed concerns regarding geopolitics. President Donald Trump recently issued a ban on immigration pertaining to anyone coming from a few different Middle Eastern nations, and that Executive Order was met with strong protests across the US and the world. Whenever there is unrest, especially in a place as seemingly stable as the United States, this tends to hurt stock markets.

Finally, investors are looking forward to the conclusion of the FOMC meeting, which will wrap up tomorrow. Things got underway this morning, and even though no one is anticipating any changes to monetary policy, the world of investors will be tuning in regardless. With some luck, perhaps Janet Yellen’s post-meeting statement will provide clues as to what the Fed thinks about hiking rates, and when they think the next rate hike might come. A factor that is still hanging around—and one that is also a threat to progress made by precious metals—is the prospect of up to 3 more rate hikes this year. Being that US economic growth is still being viewed as mostly positive, 3 rate hikes are still very much on the table.

European Inflation Increases in January

Though stocks in the US were mostly mixed and moving downward, those in Europe were on the up and up thanks to some upbeat inflation data. According to the statistics, inflation across the European Union rose at a pace of 1.8% for the first month of 2017. This is the fastest rise in inflation over the course of a single month in more than 4 years.

Further bolstering this upbeat news was a report regarding consumer prices in Europe’s leading economy, Germany. According to this data, consumer prices in Germany rose in January at a pace of 1.9%. This annualized rate was .2% better than December’s 1.7% reading. What’s more, the 1.9% annual rate is right in line with what the European Central Bank has deemed “price stability.” This is a very good thing for a region that has been subject to a very rocky past few years economically.

Wrap-Up

There wasn’t much in the way of fresh inputs on Tuesday, but there is still plenty out there to keep investors busy. As we look forward to Wednesday and the rest of the week, the post-meeting statement delivered by the FOMC will be hawked over by investors of all types. In addition to that, it will be intriguing to see if President Trump does anything else to stoke protests. For now, however, all of this unrest is playing right into the hands of precious metals spot values.