Marex Spectron Bullion Thoughts

Well, I’m glad we all held our breath for that one!! Yes, I am being sarcastic. The market had put itself on hold for a while but at the end of the day there were no surprises. As expected rates were raised by a quarter of a percent and the Fed kept to its projection of three rate increases in 2018, which put to rest for the moment the growing possibility of four, which supported gold. This created the usual stupidity, with the dollar falling and gold rising initially (correct response). Then a minute later, they reversed and then a minute later reversed again. I would love to be able to see exactly who trades these markets at these times and attempt to understand the logic behind it, but I doubt I ever will!! Suffice it to say, these moves will happen ad inifinitum until somebody looks at the algo/HFT trading programmes and does something about them. Again, I doubt that will happen either.

Anyway, although the Fed also said they saw a steeper rate path in 2019/20, that is too far away to bother gold/dollar traders and we will stick with looking at this year. Gold is still within its range and I still don’t see it breaking either way for the foreseeable future. The price will continue to fluctuate on the back of dollar moves,  but as I have said all along, I would be happier buying dips than selling rallies, but will continue to do both until the range breaks. There are too many things going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to be too short of gold!

Today sees Initial Jobless Claims at 12:30 London time and then PMI at 13:45, so scope for a bit of fun and games, but nothing particularly serious.