Gold & Silver Fall Again as Fed Hits Dissent Over Keeping Rates at Zero
From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...
Gold traded mostly lower in Asia and London on Wednesday, before it briefly spiked higher early in New York trade to reach $1099.60 an ounce.
The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P reversed early losses and turned modestly higher after the Federal Reserve's latest policy statement eased worries about rising rates any time soon.
The Federal Reserve kept the fed funds rate in its record low range of 0.00% to 0.25% as expected and said rates will remain "exceptionally low" for an "extended period".
However, Kansas City Fed president Hoenig dissented from that view, saying that "financial conditions had changed sufficiently" for market expectations to be primed for a rate rise sooner.
The Gold Price then fell back off into the close and ended near its low of the session with a loss of 1.2%.
The Gold Price in Euros fell to about €774 an ounce.
Silver steadily fell throughout most of trade and ended with a loss of 2.3%.
Platinum lost $31.50 to $1484.50, and copper fell over 11 cents to about $3.21.
Gold Mining and silver equities fell over 2% by early afternoon before they rebounded a bit, but they still ended with 1% losses on average.
Oil fell after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories fell 3.9 million barrels, gasoline inventories rose 2.0 million barrels, and distillates rose 400,000 barrels.
The US Dollar index and Treasury bonds rose on risk aversion after Wednesday morning’s dismal New Home Sales report.
Sales of new US homes fell sharply in Dec., new data showed, and home-loan applications fell 11% last week.
Thursday at 08:30 EST brings Initial US Jobless Claims for last week, expected at 450,000, plus Durable Orders for December, expected up 2.0%.
Excluding transportation, orders are expected to have risen 0.5%.
Looking to Buy Gold today...?