Gold and silver spot values are trading lower today as investors await the release of the minutes from the FOMC’s most recent meeting. Due to the lack of economic data on the slate this week, the FOMC minutes will be perhaps more heavily scrutinized than normal. US equities are performing better today and are a strong indicator that the market believes the FOMC minutes will do nothing more than restate the Fed’s positive outlook on the US economy.
The crisis in Ukraine is still far from resolved, but tensions have taken a step backwards this week thanks to the most unlikely of sources. Russian president Vladimir Putin called upon his military, which has been building up along the border with Ukraine, to withdraw from their current positions. Up until recently, Russia has only been seen instigating matters in Ukraine and doing more to make the crisis worse than they were to alleviate already strained tensions. Now, with Russia taking a more positive stance on the crisis, there is no doubting that safe-haven demand for precious metals will decline to some extent.
FOMC Minutes Expected In The Early Afternoon
The biggest and only piece of US economic data worth talking about this week will come out early this afternoon in the form of the minutes from the FOMC’s most recent meeting. Despite recently falling US T-bond yields, the Fed is still very optimistic with regard to the overall strength of the US economy. Though today’s minutes are not expected to yield any groundbreaking monetary policy changes, investors will, as they always do, tune in to anything and everything the Fed has to say.
Most market analysts are saying that today’s spot value declines can be directly attributed to rising US equities. What’s more, analysts have pointed out that both precious metals and stocks are trading within two well-defined ranges as of late and are having a hard time moving too much further in either direction. As it stands, gold is still slightly below the $1,300 threshold while silver’s spot value continues to decline towards the $19/ounce mark.
It will be interesting to see how the next few weeks’ worth of economic data and activity in both Europe and the United States will weigh on or boost the spot values of precious metals.
