Mid-Day Gold & Silver Market Report – 9/21/2011

FED STEPPING IN, GLOBAL ACTION NEEDED

Prices have remained relatively steady since the Morning Gold & Silver Market Report. The relative evenness of prices is supported by news that new construction of homes fell, but existing home sales hit its highest point since March. There is a lot of hypothesizing that the Federal Reserve will come out with a new round of easing as well, to the chagrin of a number of political leaders. "The expectation of some sort of easing from the Fed and poor economic data will make it difficult for gold to break sharply below $1,800," said Li Ning, an analyst at Shanghai CIFCO Futures.

The Fed has been involved in meetings over the last two days and an announcement is expected at approximately 2:15 PM ET. Fed officials are leaning towards pushing their investment philosophy to longer term investments with hopes to inspire mortgage refinancing and investing in riskier assets without affecting consumers’ pricing of goods. With the current unemployment rate and confidence lagging, most Fed officials want to avoid U.S. growth weakening. An interesting development is that Great Britain and Norway (not members of the eurozone) looking to ease their respective economies as well.

In a speech before the United Nations, President Barack Obama spoke towards global sustained and coordinated action. He has a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy set for later today. “We acted together to avert a depression in 2009…We must take urgent and coordinated action once more,” were remarks provided by President Obama. “The focus in all these conversations will be how can we once again take the steps that we need to take in our own countries that are sufficiently bold,” Ben Rhodes, deputy White House National Security Adviser, said at a briefing yesterday.

At 12:01 PM (CT) the APMEX precious metals spot prices were:

• Gold - $1,810.60 – Up $3.00.
• Silver - $40.67 – Up $0.52.
• Platinum - $1,791.60 – Up $6.70.
• Palladium - $717.30 – Down $1.50.