Carsten Menke, a treasury analyst at Yingfeng, noted that the precious metals market is seeing increasing participation from speculative traders. Menke added that because metals such as silver, platinum, and palladium require relatively small amounts of capital to drive price movements, they are more susceptible to the influence of speculative trading and trend followers. He noted that this pattern also applies to gold to some extent. Although Menke believes that the U.S. move to oust Venezuelan President Maduro has not had a substantial impact on fundamentals, it appears to have further fueled bullish sentiment in the market. He stated that this bullish sentiment suggests that the risk for gold prices remains skewed to the upside.