Gold and silver are both solidly up on the second day of the unofficial last week of Summer. The marketplace is quiet for the most part, though the potential for an increase in violence in the Middle East is growing rapidly. This looming possibility means that investors are looking to take fewer risks and are more apt to allocating their investment funds places where they think their money will be safe.

It will be a slow start to the week for the UK as well, who is just starting its week today due to the observance of a public holiday which took place yesterday.

Increased Syrian Tensions

There is a feeling of “risk-off” in the marketplace today as the United States looks more and more like they are going to take some sort of military action in Syria. After reports that the current Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own citizens surfaced, the world began to pay close attention to this particular nation.

It is unclear the exact type of action the United States is going to take, but so long as the military is involved there is little doubt that it will greatly increase the tensions in a part of the world where tensions are constantly high as it is.

Gold and silver shot up in value early Tuesday as precious metals are taking on the quality of safe-haven assets. World stock indexes are suffering today which means no one is all too surprised when they see gold and silver making the gains that both metals have already today. It is likely that, barring any big news, gold and silver will make this day one of the largest single-day gains both metals have made in a while, but only time will tell if this is the case.

The Indian Rupee also took another dive this morning as it hit yet another record low when compared to the US Dollar.

Light European News

Even though United States’ potential involvement in Syria as well as the continued depreciation of the Indian Rupee are making most of the headlines on Tuesday, there is still some economic news to report out of Europe, Germany to be specific.

The German Business Confidence Index rose for the fourth straight month, bringing confidence levels to their highest point in over a year.

This news help boost the belief that the Euro Zone economy is beginning to fully recover from economic recession. Germany, the EU’s largest economy, has been pulling much of the weight as it is by far the best economy in the region. More lately, however, we have seen other countries join in the effort to make the EU as prominent of an economic region as it was only a few years ago.