There is no doubt about it, volume is thinning out as the holiday season closely approaches. Today for example volume in gold futures is sitting at 173,253 contracts. That is just a small percentage of the large volume witnessed in November which would average about 300,000, and on November 7^th actually spiked to 678,673.

The precious metals complex is trading fractionally lower today as U.S. equities continue to rise. Given that US equities are only fractionally higher gold, silver and platinum are all trading fractionally lower. This all-in light of dollar strength providing some headwinds to any potential gain.

As of 4:00 PM EST gold futures basis the most active February contract lost $0.30, and is currently fixed at 1480.90. This fractional decline of -0.03% is lower in light of dollar weakness, with the dollar index currently down by -0.15% and fixed at 96.60.

To say that this week contained multiple events that had a large impact on the market would be an understatement. First the last Federal Reserve FOMC meeting was held this week, and yesterday Trump announced that the United States and China have agreed to a phase-one trade deal.

The entire precious metals complex moved higher today after the conclusion of Decembers FOMC meeting. The Federal Reserve concluded its final Federal Open Market Committee meeting for the year, and as many expected left interest rates unchanged for the remainder of 2019.

There are two major events this week that market participants are going to be assessing. The first event is tomorrow’s conclusion of this month’s FOMC meeting. It is widely anticipated that the Federal Reserve will announce that they plan to stay the course and leave interest rates where they are.

Both spot gold and futures remain neutral to slightly higher on the day. As of 3:53 PM EST February futures are currently up $0.10 and fixed at $1465.20. Spot gold is also showing fractional gains on the day currently up $0.68 at $1460.71. The precious metals are also getting a small tailwind from a slightly lower dollar index. Currently the U.S.

Both gold and silver had strong declines today following the release of the U.S. Labor Department’s jobs report. Estimates for today’s report were 185,000 non-farm payroll jobs would have been added in the month of November. The actual number came in at 81,000 above expectations with 266,000 new jobs being added last month.

Gold, silver and palladium futures are trading higher on the day, and with the exception of platinum the precious metals have all shown gains. As of 5:18 PM EST gold is fractionally higher, currently fixed at $1481.10, which is a net gain of $0.90 (+0.06%). Palladium is also fractionally higher and fixed at $1846.30, with a net gain of $0.90 (+0.05%).