Gold and silver prices are modestlydown in early-afternoon U.S. trading Thursday. Themetals have been trading sideways in quieter fashion for several sessions,awaiting a new fundamental spark to drive market direction. While this week’suptick in trader and investor risk appetite has limited buying interest insafe-haven gold and silver, their bullish near-term technical chart postureshave limited selling interest.

Some positive news coming from thePhiladelphia Fed business survey this morning did put a bit of extra sellingpressure into the metals markets, as the data gave the U.S. dollarindex a slight lift.

U.S.stock indexes are firmer at midday, but European and Asian stock markets weremostly lower overnight. Traders and investors are nowlamenting reports out this week that the U.S. and China trade talks may not begoing as well as many thought just last week. Adding to the murkiness isreports that U.S. federal prosecutors will file criminal charges of theft ofintellectual property against the big Chinese technology firm Huawei. The lingering government shutdown may alsobe negatively impacting the U.S. equities. The added uncertainty oflimited, fresh U.S. economic data is an underlying negative for many marketsand maybe also for some big companies.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa Maysurvived a no-confidence vote from Parliament late Wednesday, but the marketswere little impacted on the protracted Brexit drama playing out.