Gold Spot Price Open: $1,150

Gold Spot Price Close: $1,169

Change in Gold Spot Price: +$19

Silver Spot Price Open: $15.63

Silver Spot Price Close: $15.98

Change in Silver Spot Price: +$0.35

Precious metals began the day and spent much of it posting small gains, but after the FOMC’s statement immediately amplified any and all gains made. When all was said and done, gold gained just shy of 20 dollars while silver was up by 35 cents. Platinum and palladium also ended the day having made significant strides forward. Now, the real challenge becomes whether or not metals will be able to hang on to or possibly even build upon today’s gains.

Swedish Central Bank Makes Record Rate Cut

Though there is no denying that the real focus of the day and week is the FOMC meeting, that was not the only happening worth talking about today. During the early morning hours it was announced that Sweden’s Riksbank slashed its main interest rate so drastically that it is now sitting at -.25%. According to officials from Sweden, this most recent rate cut was made in order to further expand the country’s monetary policy.

In addition to slashing its main interest rate, the Riksbank also lowered its repo rate by .15%. The reasoning behind this move was due to the fact that an appreciating Swedish Krona may harm the current trend of upward-moving inflation levels. Like many other global central banks recently, Sweden’s is trying to stay on top of monetary policy and make as many changes as necessary in order to keep their economy growing. Whether this overload of central bank activity will help the world’s struggling economies or not remains to be seen, but I am sure we will find out before long.

FOMC Loses Patience

As expected, the FOMC, in their post-meeting statement, were not seen using the word “patient” in order to describe how they feel about hiking interest rates in the US. Though this was expected, gold and silver were given an almost immediate boost that saw them recover some of the value that has been lost over the course of the past two weeks or more. Despite not using the word “patient”, the FOMC’s statement did not at all insinuate that the Fed is in a rush to hike rates. A part of the statement officially read, “The Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term.”

Though still heavily cryptic, investors are anticipating this statement as meaning that interest rates will be hiked sometime in the neat future. Now and through the next few days you can expect that the attitude of the global marketplace will change such that interest rate hikes in the US will now be expected to take place sometime around June. Of course, this is all dependent on the labor market in the United States, which has recently been called into question for a few different reasons. As always, we will continue to keep a close eye on any and all factors that may be perceived as having an impact on the Fed’s rate hike decision.

Wrap-Up

Looking ahead to Thursday, you can bet that the market will continue to digest what the Fed had to say today. For precious metals, this could possibly mean even more gains, but when you consider the nature of the current global marketplace, that is difficult to say for sure. Looking ahead, you can bet that investors will very closely eye any and all employment data from the US, starting with this week’s weekly jobless claims report which is expected to be made public before the end of the week.