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%).

As a market analyst fortunate enough to live in Hawaii, the term flip-flops is most commonly used to express a type of sandal that are the prominent form of footwear worn on the islands. In Hawaii flip-flops are not only worn at the beach but with the exception of business attire, (no ties and aloha shirts) are acceptable casual wear anywhere on the island.

President Trump speaking at a news conference in London today drew a hardline in the sand as to his position about the current trade negotiations between the United States and China in which he said “A China trade deal is dependent on one thing — do I want to make it.”

An interesting mix of fundamental news which could be interpreted as bullish for gold and silver, did little to move the precious metals higher today. They did however move both gold and silver off of the intraday lows this morning. As of 4:32 PM EST gold futures basis the February contract is currently trading down $4.10 (- 0.28%) at $1468.60.