Gold and silver experienced a late day surge on Monday which cancelled out early morning losses and gave investors a small glimmer of hope heading into the next four days of the week. As you could have probably expected, those gains began backtracking early on Tuesday as gold and silver both started the day down a bit. Around 9 AM on Tuesday gold was back down about 15 dollars while silver had lost over 50 cents already. There is little precious metals market-relevant news set to be released on Tuesday, but Wednesday is a very different story.

Bernanke to Address Congress

Though there is little for investors to watch on Tuesday besides a retail sales report out of the United States, Wednesday will see all precious metals investors keeping their eyes fixated on Ben Bernanke’s speech to Congress about the state of the economy and monetary policy.

The Federal Open Market Committee’s notes are going to be released on Wednesday as well which always has the chance to influence spot prices one way or another. Investors will be paying such close attention to both the FOMC notes and Ben Bernanke’s speech because it is expected that one of the two will shed some light on the future of monetary policy in the US. While many people are expecting an announcement that sees a timeline for the winding down of Quantitative Easing, we will just have to wait and see if that will be the case.

Some folks think that QE will be abruptly stopped, but the more popular thought is that it will be wound down over a period of time as to not throw the marketplace into an upheaval. If it is announced that QE will be suspended or slowed down, you can expect that this news will have a negative impact on both gold and silver.

Chinese Manufacturing Data

Another story that precious metals investors will be keeping their eye on on Wednesday is the release of the newest slate of Chinese Manufacturing data. At this point it is expected that the data will show less than stellar results which will give even more credence to the thought that China’s economy is slowing down at fairly substantial rates.

Other News

In other news, the Canadian Dollar fell against the US Dollar as investors in Canada are also expecting an announcement in regards to QE tomorrow. According to Bloomberg.com, Canada’s dollar is merely “following the flow” of currencies declining in value against the Dollar.

Bloomberg also suggested that the US’ recently strong economy is reason enough for Bernanke and other members of the Fed to justify a winding down of the QE program.

What Else to Watch For

Though most of today’s stories are about news that will be released tomorrow, there are still plenty of other things for you to look out for. For one, any precious metals investor should be keeping their eyes on both the Japanese Nikkei index and the US stock markets as gold and silver have been feeling heavy downward pressure from both entities as of late.

It is also advised that you watch how the US Dollar performs as this has been gold and silver’s main combatant as of late. In the early morning hours on Tuesday the USD Index rose which is likely the reason behind why gold and silver started the day on negative notes.