Gold Spot Price Open: $1,260

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,251

Change in Gold Spot Price: -$9

Silver Spot Price Open: $18.44

Silver Spot Price Close: $18.29

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.15

Precious metals were the victims of profit-taking on Tuesday as the biggest news of the day came in the form of a Donald Trump speech delivered later in the afternoon. When all was said and done, gold lost about 9 dollars while silver conceded roughly 15 cents. Platinum and palladium also fell on the day, however platinum lost only a few dollars while palladium lost more than 10.

Profit-Taking Appears Ahead of Trump Testimony

The biggest news story of the day centered around an event that will not even take place until later tonight. President Trump is set to make his first official address to Congress this evening, and there is a lot that he is going to talk about. From tax cuts, to a military spending increase, and everything in between, there is a lot that investors will be paying attention to tonight.

The profit-taking we saw today has a lot more to do with the fact that gold hit a 3.5 month high on Monday rather than Trump’s planned speech. Precious metals have been performing well for quite a few consecutive weeks now, so it should come as a surprise to no one that we are seeing a little bit of profit-taking. The silver lining to all of this is that even as investors cash in on recent gains, spot values are still hanging tough. Gold is still positioned above $1,250/ounce while silver is still hanging above the $18 threshold, so while there was profit-taking, it did not result in serious, large losses.

Apart from more details with regard to his supposed tax cuts, President Trump also announced that he will be giving some details as to the plan that will replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act; a key cornerstone of Trump’s presidential campaign. All in all, Tuesday night’s address will be quite interesting to watch and discuss, and you can bet that it will be one of the main topics of discussion for Wednesday.

Some US Economic Data Dealt

Things could have been a lot worse for gold and silver on Tuesday, but it appears as though metals were able to successfully navigate their way through some stronger US economic data. First up it was the US Conference Board reporting on consumer confidence. According to the Conference Board, the consumer confidence index for February rose to a reading of 114.8, up from a reading of just over 111 in January. Lynn Franco, a director at the US Conference Board, commented on the strong reading by saying, “Consumer confidence increased in February and remains at a 15-year high (July 2001, 116.3) Consumers rated current business and labor market conditions more favorably this month than in January. Expectations improved regarding the short-term outlook for business, and to a lesser degree jobs and income prospects. Overall, consumers expect the economy to continue expanding in the months ahead.”

Also released today was the preliminary GDP reading from the 4th quarter of 2016. According to the US Department of Commerce, Q4 preliminary GDP was up by 1.9%. Perhaps this is why gold and silver were able to navigate the stronger consumer confidence report, because most expectations had called for GDP to grow by at least 2% to close out 2016. Even if that 2% growth was realized, it would have been quite smaller than the more than 3.5% growth realized in Q3. Perhaps this will help precious metals move through the latter half of the week smoothly.

Wrap-Up

All things considered, gold and silver were able to make it through Tuesday relatively unscathed. Both metals lost on the day, but given the circumstances their losses were not very significant at all. What will be interesting to see come the opening of markets tomorrow is whether anything Trump says tonight will mix up the marketplace. Most people would think that there is a high likelihood that his statements will influence investors, but there is no way of knowing this for sure as there is no way of knowing how specific President Trump will get regarding the plans he is going to discuss.