Tag: Federal Reserve

Gold Suffers Its Fourth Straight Week Of Declines

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Editor’s Note: I will be speaking at an upcoming conference The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference in British Columbia on May 17 and 18. For more information please click the link above.

Gold opened at $1977 on Monday, April 18, and this would mark the beginning of four consecutive weekly declines. As of 5:10 PM EDT gold futures basis, the most active June 2022 Comex contract is fixed at $1810.30 after factoring in today’s decline of $14.30 or 0.78%. Today’s decline in gold occurred without the benefit of dollar strength. The dollar index declined by 0.36% and is currently fixed at 104.515

Kitco Gold Index (KGX)

The image above is a screen-print of the KGX (Kitco Gold Index) which was taken at 4:37 PM EDT. At that time spot gold was fixed at $1810.80 after factoring in a decline of $10.70. Market participants were active sellers resulting in a $14.30 price decline. Dollar weakness provided mild tailwinds adding $3.60 (+0.20%) in value. Continue reading "Gold Suffers Its Fourth Straight Week Of Declines" →

Gold Resilient Amid Market Sentiment Reversal

Posted on by The INO.com Team

This week the Federal Reserve addressed revisions to its current monetary policy in its attempt to reduce the current levels of inflation to an acceptable target. The statement released after the FOMC meeting, coupled with Chairman Powell’s press conference, resulted in extreme volatility in many financial sectors.

Market participants witnessed one of the strongest knee-jerk reactions and complete market sentiment reversal over 24 hours. The initial market sentiment was extremely short-lived as it was followed by a complete turnaround from the initial reaction the following trading day.

The release of the Federal Reserve’s FOMC statement, coupled with Chairman Powell’s press conference, resulted in a major rally in U.S. equities. The S&P 500 gained almost 3%, the largest daily gain in two years. Equities overall experienced the best Fed-day return since 2011. It significantly impacted gold, moving the precious yellow metal higher. Concurrently, the dollar had a significant decline losing almost 1%, and yields on U.S. Treasuries were also significantly declining. Continue reading "Gold Resilient Amid Market Sentiment Reversal" →

Gold Bounces But Couldn't Hold Friday's Highs

Posted on by The INO.com Team

June 2022 gold futures opened Friday morning at $1895.80, far above Thursday’s low of $1871. Trading to a high of $1921.30 and settled in New York up 1.1% at $1911.70. However, on Fridays, Globex trading remains open until 6 PM EDT before closing for the weekend. As of 5:10 EDT, gold has moved back below $1900 and is currently fixed at $1896.90, a net gain of $5.60 or 0.30% in after-hours trading.

Gold Futures Daily Chart

The tremendous price swings evident in gold over the last couple of days likely resulted from multiple factors influencing gold prices. Investors continue to focus on next week’s FOMC meeting. It is widely anticipated that the Fed will enact a .50 percent interest rate hike which will go into effect at the end of next week’s meeting. Concurrently it is widely believed that the Federal Reserve will begin to reduce its balance sheet assets over the next three years. Economists polled by Bloomberg news believe that the Federal Reserve will reduce its balance sheet from the current level of $8.8 trillion to $6.4 trillion by the conclusion of 2024. Continue reading "Gold Bounces But Couldn't Hold Friday's Highs" →

Let's Get Serious

Posted on by George Yacik

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated strongly last week that the Fed will likely raise interest rates by 50 basis points at its next meeting on May 3-4. It will likely get more aggressive in its fight against 8%-plus inflation. It’s going to have to because just as fast as the Fed is trying to bail water out of the boat, the White House and Congress are determined to keep pouring it in.

“It is appropriate in my view to be moving a little more quickly” to raise rates than the Fed has recently, Powell said last Thursday at an International Monetary Fund event. “Fifty basis points will be on the table for the May meeting,” he said. That would double the 25-basis point increase at its March meeting, which now looks relatively puny compared to the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is rapidly approaching a three-handle for the first time since 2018.

St. Louis Fed president James Bullard, suddenly the most hawkish voting member on the Fed’s monetary policy committee, said he thinks a 75-basis point hike is more appropriate. However, he conceded that “more than 50 basis points is not my base case at this point.” Still, 50 bps is a lot better than 25 bps in bringing the Fed’s target closer to the so-called neutral rate, which is when Fed policy is neither accommodative nor restrictive, and the Fed is nowhere near that (although no one really knows what the magic number is). With six more meetings to go this year, including May’s, 50 bps at each meeting would push the fed funds rate above 3%.

That seems awfully aggressive, given the Powell Fed’s generally dovish inclinations. Still, it may have no choice given that Continue reading "Let's Get Serious" →

Gold Declines As Fed Prepares To Fight Inflation

Posted on by The INO.com Team

The Federal Reserve’s next FOMC meeting is just under two weeks away, and market participants are gaining insight from Chairman Powell and other Federal Reserve voting members. Recent statements by Chairman Powell have indicated a major shift in his position regarding inflation. Up until his most recent statements, he maintained that inflation levels had peaked, were transitory, and would begin to decline. However, he has been forced to reevaluate those assumptions based on the reality that the CPI is currently at 8.5% for March, and the PCE index came in at 6.4% in February. PCE numbers for March will be released on April 29.

Statements by all members of the Federal Reserve have intrinsically contained subtle changes in words used to describe their forward guidance; this was not the case this week when Chairman Powell addressed the issue of inflation head-on.

For the first time, Powell was forced to acknowledge that “it is appropriate to be moving a little more quickly... Our goal is to use our tools to get demand and supply back in synch…and do so without a slowdown that amounts to a recession... It is going to be very challenging.”

During the March FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve began its process of interest rate normalization or “lift-off” by raising the Fed Funds rate from virtually zero (0% to .25%) by .25% taking interest rates to 25 – 50 basis points.

The most recent inflationary data indicates that Americans are experiencing the highest inflationary pressure since January 1982, which makes it almost certain Continue reading "Gold Declines As Fed Prepares To Fight Inflation" →