Bloomberg
Gold prices settled with a modest gain on Wednesday, then fell back under the $1,300-an-ounce level in electronic trading, as a benchmark U.S. dollar index headed higher in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to lift a key interest rate.
“The Fed statement is more hawkish, reflecting the apparent signal of an additional rate increase in 2018,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, so “higher rates and stronger dollar are pressuring gold.”
“Gold is likely to remain under pressure,” he said. “The economic growth story continues to favor the U.S., relative to foreign growth a boost for the U.S. dollar and a headwind to gold.”
In electronic trading shortly after the announcement, August gold traded at $1,297.60 an ounce. Prices rose $1.90, or nearly 0.2%, to settle at $1,301.30 an ounce ahead of the decision.
“Gold’s lack of much response—at least at this early stage—runs contrary to a pattern that has been traced out since the Fed’s first stab at rate normalization in December 2015,” said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter. “In short, gold has traded down (and the dollar up) in anticipation of expected rate hikes, with the trends reversing in their wake.”
After last year’s June rate hike, “it took gold a couple of weeks to begin rallying after that hike, but when it did begin to move, it rallied strongly, eventually posting a 10% gain,” said Lundin. “If gold does similarly after this June hike, the rally would take the price well over the key technical level of $1,400.”
The Fed on Wednesday voted to raise its benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 1.75% and 2%. The central bank also said it expects to raise rates four times this year, up from a forecast of three in March.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell held a mews conference. See the live blog/recap and video of the event here
Rising rates can diminish the appetite for assets like gold because the commodity doesn’t offer a yield, compared against the perceived safety of other assets like government bonds. Higher interest rates can also boost the dollar and dull demand for dollar-denominated commodities.
After the Fed announcement, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index a measure of the dollar against a half-dozen major currencies, was up 0.1% at 93.898. It was trading lower at 93.576 shortly before the news.
The move for the dollar was modest, with “nothing major” in the Fed statement, said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Think Markets UK.
“Two more rate hikes are expected, and the question is if the Fed is taking it too far,” he said. The market doesn’t seem to think so, “because when we look at the gold market, the initial downward reaction wasn’t that strong.”
Prices had settled below a psychologically significant level at $1,300 Tuesday on the back of a strengthening dollar, and as easing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea dulled the metal’s haven appeal.
Geopolitically, “there is little to get excited about and with President [Donald Trump] Trump and Kim Jong Un now best friends—another mover for the gold market is removed,” said David Govett, head of precious metals at Marex Spectron. Trump and Kim signed a pact Tuesday to work toward a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Among other Comex-traded metals, July silver added 0.6% to $16.991 an ounce. July copper climbed by 0.1% to $3.254 a pound.
July platinum settled at $902.50 an ounce, up 0.1%, while September lost 0.8% to $1,007.20 an ounce.
Among exchange-traded funds, SPDR Gold Shares traded little changed and the iShares Silver Trust tacked on 0.3%. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF edged down by 0.7%.