INVESTORS AWAIT FED MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT – The US dollar drops again to nearly a three year low against a basket of six other major currencies. Gold and silver investors will be closely monitoring the Fed announcement today, at 11:30 AM (ET) and the first ever post-meeting press conference by a Fed Chairman. Mr. Bernanke will conduct this conference at 2:30PM (ET). Will the Fed continue down the road of easy money or will they began to signal inflation fighting measures? Easy monetary policies have driven the price of gold and silver up. “A lot of gold buyers will be waiting for signals from the Fed,” said Bernard Dahdah, a London-based analyst at Natixis Commodity Markets Ltd. Any indications “on currency and interest rates could highly affect the price of gold. For the next weeks we view gold as being driven by the dollar.”
The S&P cut Japan’s credit rating outlook from neutral to negative, as a result of the recent earthquakes and tsunami. A similar move was announced just weeks ago for the US credit rating outlook. Japan had already been struggling to come up with a deficit reduction plan before the earthquakes struck. Today’s downgrade is recognition that this task has become even more daunting.
At 8 AM (CT) the APMEX precious metal prices were:
- Gold price - $1,510.50 (up $6.00)
- Silver price - $45.68 (up 56 cents)
- Platinum price - $1,814.00 ( up $9.60)
- Palladium price - $754.10 (down $2.60)