Gold Spot Price Open: $1,178

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,175

Change in Gold Spot Price: -$3

Silver Spot Price Open: $17.24

Silver Spot Price Close: $16.99

Change in Silver Spot Price: -$0.25

Precious metals, after making gains on Wednesday, were seen losing value throughout most of the day. When all was said and done, gold experienced losses of about 3 dollars while silver fell by more than 20 cents and just managed to stay above the $17/ounce threshold. Platinum lost roughly 4 dollars while palladium managed to gain about 5.

ECB Alters Asset-Purchasing Plan

From the onset of this week, the main thing on the minds of investors was what was going to happen to the ongoing asset-purchasing program, often referred to as quantitative easing. The current plan sees the central bank purchasing about €80 billion worth of assets (eg. Bonds) each and every month. During the post-meeting speech delivered by ECB president Mario Draghi, it was made clear that the program will continue, however monthly purchases will be reduced beginning this upcoming April.

According to Draghi, monthly purchases will be decreased by €20 billion to bring the new monthly purchasing amount to €60 billion. What’s more, they have said that this aspect of the QE program will run from April until December. Around this time next year, the ECB will meet once more in order to determine if QE should be extended, or if it should be called off altogether; something that a few people were expecting to hear today.

In its post-meeting statement, the ECB said, “From April 2017, the net asset purchases are intended to continue at a monthly pace of €60 billion until the end of December 2017, or beyond, if necessary, and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. If, in the meantime, the outlook becomes less favorable or if financial conditions become inconsistent with further progress towards a sustained adjustment of the path of inflation, the Governing Council intends to increase the program in terms of size and/or duration.”

Put simply, the QE in Europe is going to continue until tangible and sustained economic growth is realized. Today’s decision and statement on the part of the ECB tells investors that Europe is sticking to this plan until results are seen. Many people were thinking that because of the spotty success seen by QE so far, that the plan would be halted by year’s end. Clearly, that is not the case.

Euro Sinks in Response to ECB

As you could have probably expected, the announcement that QE is going to continue in Europe for at least another year is something that did the Euro currency no favors. Seeing as the program is aimed directly at devaluing the currency, the announcement of its continuation was always going to push the value of the Euro lower. As such, the US Dollar was given a lot of room to move forward, and that is exactly what happened.

Gold and silver were once again caught up in the action of outside markets. The stronger Dollar prevented gold and silver from making gains. Even though we saw a spattering of positives through Tuesday and Wednesday, it was always going to be difficult for precious metals to really sustain the gains that were made, even though they were, by no means, large gains. Going forward, we expect to see much of the same until at least after next week’s FOMC meeting. Although, with that being said, gold and silver are likely to be on the receiving end of pressure for the foreseeable future thanks to the FOMC and many other factors.

Wrap-Up

Thursday was an interesting day across the global marketplace for no other reason than the ECB meeting and its outcome. People were unsure of what to expect, and the announcement that was made is still being digested. What we do know, however, is that gold and silver are still feeling a lot of pressure from a variety of factors. This is not going to change anytime soon.