Spot Gold Price Strengthens Ahead of U.S. Fed Reserve Meeting

Cassie Bastien

12/11/2017 9:45:40 AM

Daily Gold & Silver Market Report – 12/11/2017

The Precious Metals market saw slight gains early Monday morning as this week marks the last Federal Reserve meeting of 2017, which could result in a third and final interest rate hike. If that does indeed occur, the U.S. dollar could strengthen further, causing safe-haven assets such as Gold to drop. Jan Harvey with Reuters said, “The Fed is widely tipped to lift rates at its two-day policy meeting ending Wednesday, but its accompanying statement will be closely watched for any surprises. The bank is expected to increase rates another two or three times in 2018, but still-sluggish inflation and wage growth has raised question marks over that view.” Societe Generale said in a note, “With Silver prices highly correlated to Gold's, the December rate hike, along with the three further 2018 hikes our economists expect, will weigh on investors' appetite.”

High Rewards for Silver Investors in 2018

Investors are taking advantage of recent lows within the Silver price charts as it nears lows seen in 2008. However, despite starting and ending 2017 somewhat down, Silver prices have not always been this low. “After the low start of the year, Silver quickly tacked on about 18 percent to a top of $17.50 per ounce,” Hacked Reporter Fredrik Vold said. He provides price charts showing Silver is back down to where it started 2017. With that, analysts say, “Silver has been trading in a triangle pattern on the longer-term weekly chart, with the price now trading very near the lower end of the triangle, adding confluence to our bias that Silver will trade up from here.” Vold as well as other market watchers say, “A low price by any measure combined with two major technical support levels adds confidence to our trade and makes Silver a low risk and potentially high reward trade for 2018.”

Could Bitcoin Reach $100,000 by End of 2018?

Dave Chapman, managing director of the cryptocurrency trading firm Octagon Strategy, believes the digital cash is only set to grow in value. In fact, he told CNBC, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see a six-figure headline.” Bitcoin prices started this year below $1,000 but quickly jumped above $17,000, according to Coindesk. If that isn’t enough, Metro News Reporter Jasper Hamill said a Chicago-based firm called Cboe Global Markets launched the first mainstream regulated Bitcoin exchange Sunday night. Hamill said, “It proved so popular that the website suffered an outage due to levels of demand.”

At 10:45 a.m. (ET), the APMEX Precious Metals spot prices were:

• Gold, $1,250.60 Up $1.70
• Silver, $15.91  Up $0.01
• Platinum, $890.00  Up $3.30
• Palladium, $1,009.20 Up $1.80

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