Gold and silver have continued along their extended declines in the early parts of Wednesday as the whole of the investing world is awaiting the release of the FOMC’s minutes today. With the president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve scheduled to speak and the FOMC minutes due out, today is shaping up to be a busy one for precious metals.
Though it is likely that QE will be retained for the remainder of 2013 and the first parts of 2014, there is no saying what will come out of the next couple of hours.
FOMC Minutes
Anytime the Federal Open Market Committee so much as changes rooms the investing world is paying extremely close attention. Of course this is an exaggeration, but it must be said that the world marketplace has taken a particularly keen interest in regards to what the future holds for monetary policy in the United States. With a lack of any other major news stories, investors are keeping themselves occupied by latching on to every last word written or spoken by members of the Fed.
Today is an investor’s dream come true simply because there is so much Fed activity taking place. In addition to the FOMC minutes due out later this afternoon, investors are also going to be paying particularly close attention to what the president of the St. Louis Fed bank, James Bullard, has to say in a speech he is scheduled to deliver sometime later today. Seeing as Mr. Bullard has long been a supporter of QE and keeping QE around, it will come as no surprise if his speech centers solely on reasons why the US economy still needs Quantitative Easing.
The FOMC minutes will be analyzed just as closely as Mr. Bullard’s speech in hopes of uncovering any clues regarding the fate of QE. Should the minutes say something decisive about QE’s future (something that will almost never happen), gold and silver can be expected to take a dramatic shift in one direction or another. Instead, a more likely result from the FOMC minutes is a group consensus that QE’s future is not yet able to be decided upon. This type of news will probably be perceived as meaning that QE will be retained until sometime next year, something that will almost undoubtedly give precious metals spot values the boost they have been needing over the past 2 weeks or so.