The minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s latest meeting released on Wednesday were in line with market expectations. Everyone expects that the Fed will remain patient, so much so that a rate hike is not likely this year, nor is the Fed likely to cut rates unless a full-blown US-China trade and tech war emerges, posing a significant downside risk to the U.S. economy.
More good news for Gold investors, the World Gold Council announced that Central Bank Gold buying has surged this year. They said, ”Gold demand grew by 7% year over year in China. This was the largest first-quarter increase since 2013. Russia was again the largest buyer up 55 tons, followed by Turkey up 40 tons and China up 33 tons. Diversification and a desire for safe, liquid assets were the main drivers of buying here.”
Even though we find the price of Gold a tad down this morning ahead of the holiday weekend, the price still stands up from Tuesday’s low of $1,269.55.
Most Wall Street Gold traders that I speak with every day, have said they will be heading out early today to enjoy the holiday weekend and do not expect much movement in the price of Gold to develop in the near term.
Nonetheless, this gives them the opportunity to take a break and put their trading strategies on auto pilot and use their algorithm programs to execute their trading activity for them.
At the time of this report, the Dollar Index is trading at 97.72 after setting a fresh two-year high on Thursday at 98.38. The Pound Sterling is trading higher today following Prime Minister Theresa May’s announcement that she will resign on June 7th after over 2 years at the UK’s helm. “It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit,” she said.