Gold price headed for weekly loss as market digs in for expected Fed rate hike
London (Dec 9) Gold futures fell Friday and are on track for a weekly loss as the dollar firmed ahead a Federal Reserve meeting next week that’s expected to result in the second U.S. interest-rate hike in a year.
Financial markets are anxiously awaiting the details of that December 13-14 meeting, including a peek at the central bank’s “dot plot,” which sketches out members’ predictions for interest rates and growth measures over the coming months. It’s the pacing of the reversal of easy monetary policy next year that’s captured the markets’ attention lately.
US:GCG7
$1,162.5$1,165.0$1,167.5$1,170.0$1,172.5$1,175.0
Early Friday, gold for February delivery GCG7, -0.69% slipped $5.70, or 0.5%, to $1,166.70 an ounce. The contract looked headed for a weekly loss of roughly 1.1%.
Gold prices are flat-lining, absent fresh news flow updating speculation about the Fed monetary policy outlook,” said Ilya Spivak, currency strategist with Daily FX. “Next week’s [Federal Open Market Committee] rate decision lines up as the next key inflection point.”
Higher interest rates tend to lift the dollar and increase demand for higher-yielding alternatives to nonyielding gold.
The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.48% , which gauges the buck’s strength against six other currencies, climbed 0.3% to 101.40. Strength in the buck can undercut demand for commodities, including gold, making them less attractive for holders of other currencies.
With the Fed meeting looming, the dollar-positive monetary policy gap between the U.S. and other economic powerhouses becomes more obvious. The European Central Bank on Thursday announced it will extend its quantitative-easing program until December 2017 and possibly beyond that, which sent the euro lower against the dollar. The central bank, however, will reduce its bond-buying firepower after March. The bank did hold pat on interest rates, as expected.
As global bond yields adjust to less-easy monetary policy, gold has been increasingly reactive to yield moves. The U.S. 10-year note yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.65% has been hovering near 16-month highs, after a sharp advance in November following the U.S. elections.
Yields have risen along the range of bonds, but especially at the shorter-dated end, as the Fed is widely expected to raise its short-term rates by a quarter point when it concludes the two-day meeting next Wednesday. Fed-funds futures, a popular tool for traders to bet on U.S. interest-rate policy, indicate an above-90% probability for such a move.
As for gold’s response to the Fed, “an upside correction may materialize amid profit-taking on short positions as traders entertain the possibility that the central bank envisions a shallower tightening path than what has been priced in after the U.S. president election,” Spivak said.
What’s more, the general appetite for assets seen as risky has lowered demand for haven gold. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was poised for its fifth straight day of gains Friday, though some analysts are warning that a correction may lie ahead.
In other trading, March silver SIH7, -0.59% was changing hands at $17.04 an ounce, down 6 cents, or 0.3%. It had a strong midweek advance, leaving it on course to add more than 1% on a weekly basis.
Among exchange-traded funds, the SPDR Gold Trust GLD, -0.68% traded 0.2% lower, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF SLV, -0.55% shed 0.6%. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF GDX, -1.44% rose 0.1%.
Source: Reuters
