Gold Spot Price Open: $1,168

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,166

Change in Gold Spot Price: -$2

Silver Spot Price Open: $15.91

Silver Spot Price Close: $15.89

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.02

For a second straight day, gold and silver both did not do much moving and will end the week both in negative positions. When all was said and done, gold lost about 4 dollars while silver managed to lose roughly 2 cents. Platinum and palladium's ending numbers were mixed too, with platinum losing close to ten dollars while palladium managed to add close to the same amount.

China Lowers Interest Rate Unexpectedly

China made an unexpected move to lower its interest rates on Friday and that ended up providing a bit of support for gold and silver. Unfortunately, European and US equities rallied on the news and this did a lot in the way of limiting any upside for gold and silver. Officially, China lowered its lending and deposit rates by one quarter of one percent. The country's one-year lending rate now stands at 4.25% while the deposit rate is now 1.5% annually. In addition to next week's FOMC meeting, China's central bank will be meeting in order to discuss what its 5-year growth plan will be. Being that China is struggling from a growth perspective pretty noticeably at present, this meeting is going to be of interest to investors from all over the world.

In addition to focus on China and everything going on there, investors were still reflecting on the European Central Bank's decision to keep monetary policy steady. Draghi made it clear that current QE measures will remain intact and even hinted that they may be given a boost before the year is out. Thanks to this allusion, the USD has managed to make some nice gains against the Euro currency.

USD Index Continues to Perform Well

In the wake of yesterday's ECB meeting, the US Dollar made some nice, noticeable gains. Those gains extended into today as the greenback spent a majority of Friday moving upward. This much is likely to blame for gold and silver not really being able to make any substantial gains to close out the week. The fact that the Dollar hit a two-month high on Friday is yet another reason it was always going to be difficult for gold and silver to make any real, substantial gains.

With very little economic data from the United States delivered today, it is looking like the Dollar very well may ride this rally into the early parts of next week. With that being said, however, the fact that the FOMC meeting is going to happen next week means that just about anything can happen to the USD's current trajectory. As it stands, no one is expecting all that much from the meeting, but the Fed loves to bring abotu surprise announcements when people are least expecting them.

Wrap-Up

As seen by the price action of gold and silver through most of this week, it is evident that there was not much going on. Other than the European Central Bank meeting, the economic data was light and fairly uneventful, which translated into the spot value movements of both gold and silver. Next week has the potential to shake up the marketplace considerably, but with most expecting a somber FOMC meeting, I do not think that will be the case.