Precious metals are holding steady to slightly lower through the first half of the day on Wednesday. This week is not exactly going to bring about a large quantity of economic data, but investors are eager to see what the Fed Minutes, expected to be released later today, have to say.
In case you missed it, the latter parts of last week brought about a good amount of economic activity, but none more important than Friday’s US Labor Department employment report for September. According to the report, nearly 250,000 new jobs were added to the US economy during September. This data caused US equities as well as the US Dollar to spike upward simply due to the fact that the figures easily beat the 215,000 job addition that was expected to be seen by the market. Unfortunately, however, those gains were short-lived as both the USD and US equities have had a rough run of form through the first two days this week.
Market Anxiously Awaits Federal Reserve Minutes
Though the minutes have not made their way to the market yet, it seems as though the USD Index has finally bottomed out after a few days of consecutive losses. Equities are still feeling a bit of pressure, but for the most part investors are holding steady in hopes of the Fed’s minutes bringing about some new information regarding interest rates in the United States.
As has been the case for the past 2 months or more, investors the world over have been clambering to get their hands on any concrete information regarding when the Federal Reserve of the United States plans on tightening the reigns on US monetary policy. While it is common knowledge, at this point, that the Fed plans on raising US interest rates, the long-debated topic has been with regard to when rates will be raised, and to what extent. For this reason, investors the world over are going to be paying close attention to anything and everything the Fed’s minutes have to say. The hope is that some sort of timeline regarding higher interest rates will be uncovered in the minutes, but the reality of the matter is that such a timeline will likely still only exist in the speculation of investors.
Apart from today’s minutes, the market does not really have much else to focus on. There has been some poor European data already on the slate this week, but that did not come as much of a surprise considering the recently weak form of the wider EU economy. Going forward, investors will also be paying close attention to the EU as monetary policy shifts are seeming increasingly inevitable with each passing week/month.