Gold Spot Price Open: $1,263

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,253

Change in Gold Spot Price: -$10

Silver Spot Price Open: $20.40

Silver Spot Price Close: $20.35

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.05

Gold and silver experienced a bit of a pullback from their early week gains on a day when US lawmakers came to a somewhat surprising agreement. When markets closed, gold lost about ten dollars while silver was more stagnant, finishing down 5 cents.

The main piece of news causing a stir in the marketplace today involved the unexpected bipartisan budget agreement reached by US lawmakers. Though it has been out of the news for the past month or so, the chance of another government shutdown much like the one we saw in October was growing more likely the further we progressed through December. This is so because the deal that ended the government shutdown in October was only a temporary one, set to expire in under a month. Luckily, both Democrats and Republicans were able to come together in order to draft a budget for the duration of this government year.

Despite this unexpected agreement, precious metals spot values did not move all that much as a result. If anything, this deal being reached without any turmoil only makes for a quieter, less volatile marketplace in the United States as there is one less geopolitical development for the market to be concerned with. This translates into fewer safe-haven precious metals purchases, the kind you might see when markets are more volatile.

Now, investors are beginning to ponder about the possible outcome of the FOMC policy meeting scheduled to begin next Tuesday. As has been the case for the past few FOMC meetings, there are a lot of investors who think a tapering of Quantitative Easing will be announced, while there are others who think the announcement won’t come for some time. With recent economic data in the United States being as positive as it has been, the FOMC might finally have good reason to finalize some sort of reduction to Quantitative Easing.