Monday Open: $1,674.70
Weekly High: $1,692.40
Weekly Low: $1,653.80
Friday Close: $1,691.60

The entire week was spent in anticipation of Fed Chairman Ben Bernake’s address on Friday, so there was not much movement for gold until then, but once Bernake gave his speech, gold shot straight up after his remarks implied that monetary easing was surely on the horizon. After a slow summer of waiting for the Fed to reveal some clue as to their fiscal intentions, finally Friday brought some relief for gold bugs banking on gold investments taking even higher turns than last year. The beginning of the week until Friday morning saw the price of gold hovering around $1,650, with a few dips from hesitant expectations regarding Friday, and a few small upturns from poor economic data, but once investors got the green light from Bernake, gold peaked at just over $1,690.

With the U.S. economy still in a shambles, Bernake spoke Friday at the Fed’s annual retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and gave clear intentions of boosting the economy with some financial policy.  The Federal Reserve has the power to increase government bond buying, lower interest rates, print more paper money and other economic incentives to keep the economy rolling. When this happens, the economy may see an upturn, but it is at the expense of increased inflation. When inflation increases, the dollar weakens, and gold becomes more valuable as a safer investment.

Though Bernake didn’t explicitly state what moves he was going to make, he did admit that further policy has become necessary since unemployment is still so high and the state of the economy is still “far from satisfactory.”

The European Central Bank is still on the fringe of economic recovery, and ECB president Mario Draghi cancelled his appearance at the Fed’s Jackson Hole meeting due to a heavy workload, he said. The ECB Governing Council will hold a meeting next week to discuss measures that could bolster the euro. The economic upheaval in Europe continues, this week with Catalonia, a region of Spain, asking for a bailout from Madrid. Also, EU unemployment rose to 11.3% in July. Eurozone troubles could strengthen gold.