Gold Spot Price Open: $1,217

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,200

Change in Gold Spot Price: -$17

Silver Spot Price Open: $16.75

Silver Spot Price Close: $16.45

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.30

After yesterday’s solid gains, it should come as no surprise that metals spent much of the day Tuesday conceding value due to chart consolidation and profit-taking. When all was said and done, gold was down close to twenty dollars while silver’s losses tallied in at about 30 cents. Platinum and palladium also finished down, but only by a few dollars apiece.

Upbeat Auto Sales Paint Upbeat Picture of US Economy

Ford, GM, and Fiat Chrysler gave the US stock market a solid boost today as all three major auto manufacturers reported better than expected sales for the month of November. In all honesty, these upbeat auto sales are confusing once you consider the fact that consumer confidence in the US was just recently reported as being sub-bar, at best. Because sales relating to big-ticket items such as cars and houses are a great way for the average investor and analyst to gauge the strength of the economy in question, this report more or less affirms the belief that the US economy is continuing to perform well.

Still, with energy shares constantly in flux, there is no saying whether today’s equity market gains in the US will translate into extended gains or not. Just today, many energy shares backed down after recovering a bit on Monday. This, of course, is due to the unstable nature of crude oil at the present moment in time.

US Dollar Recovers, Pushes Metals Downward

Apart from profit-taking, another factor driving down spot values today was the fact that the US Dollar had made solid gains against a number of rival currencies. After declining towards the end of last week and facing a whole lot of scrutiny to start this week off, the Dollar has answered critics by performing quite well today. Unfortunately, the Dollar advancing makes Dollar-denominated precious metals less attractive for global investors simply because a more expensive Dollar leads to more expensive gold and silver as well.

The Dollar is often in direct competition with gold and silver, so as long the greenback is faring well, the precious metals market will likely be doing the opposite. As the week plays out, you can expect that investors will be keeping a close eye on currency markets in order to stay on top of all of the Dollar and the Euro’s movement.

Crude Oil Continues to Fall

Despite recovering a bit on Monday, the spot price of crude oil fell to a fresh 5-year low today. The price movement of crude oil remains one of the top priorities for investors because it has a direct influence on many other markets, including the precious metals market. Recently, crude oil has been especially volatile and is not really sure in which direction it would like to head. For gold, silver, and other commodities, the volatile nature of oil is causing price drops across the board.

Just today, some analysts predicted that the value of crude oil could fall even further in the coming weeks. There is no saying for sure whether this will prove to be the case or not, but with how volatile oil has been in recent days, it would not at all surprise me to see oil’s spot value fall even further.

Wrap-Up

Looking ahead to Wednesday and the rest of the week, you can bet that the attention of the market will remain fixated upon both the movement of crude oil as well as the upcoming European Central Bank meeting. For precious metals investors, these two factors are incredibly important as they very well might dictate what direction metals head for the foreseeable future. As it stands, the market is still expecting the ECB to make a policy change announcement on Thursday, so it seems like we are in for an eventful end of the week.