Gold and silver are trading lower for the second consecutive day this week as profit-taking and chart consolidation from last week’s gains are driving spot values downward. Profit-taking isn’t the only factor working against precious metals either, as the tensions in Ukraine seem to be heading towards the marketplace’s back-burner.
Today will bring with it the latest FOMC meeting, though it won’t wrap up until sometime tomorrow afternoon. Despite the market being preoccupied with today and tomorrow’s FOMC meeting, the outcome of the meeting seems to already be set in stone. We will continue to keep an eye on tensions in Ukraine, as that crisis tends to fluctuate dramatically from one day to the next.
FOMC Meeting Takes Center Stage
Even though this weekend’s referendum was all the rage for the majority of last week, this week sees investors fixating their attention elsewhere. Due to today’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, it only makes sense that investors are speculating about the outcome of today and tomorrow’s meeting.
As it stands, the market is expecting to see the FOMC taper Quantitative Easing by another $10 billion as a result of this week’s meeting. If this does turn out to be the case, gold and silver will definitely be feeling some pressure.
Also on the minds of investors this week is the pending housing data, scheduled to be released on Wednesday and Thursday. If the data does come back weaker than market expectations, it is expected that gold and silver may receive some sort of boost. With that being said, however, it would come as no surprise if the marketplace more or less ignored the week’s housing data.
Finally, the world will continue to keep a close eye on any and all developments stemming from the crisis in Ukraine. The EU and the US have been placing sanctions and in discussion about placing additional sanctions on Russians, Russia in general, and anyone else who has been linked to Crimea’s secession from Ukraine.
Though the crisis in Ukraine is slowly drifting into the background, it is painfully clear that the situation is far from resolved.
