Gold

Gold futures traded marginally higher as market participants focus on next week’s FOMC meeting. As of 4:00 PM EST, the most active February contract of gold futures is up $3.80 and fixed at $1932.

Federal Reserve officials are anything but quiet before the 10-day blackout period that occurs just before an FOMC meeting. The first FOMC meeting of the year will begin on Tuesday, January 31, and conclude on Wednesday, February 1.

The financial markets echoed the uncertainty of market participants which caused a decline in US equities today, and strong gains in gold as a safe-haven play. This was certainly a day in which investors sought safe-haven assets while simultaneously avoiding the intrinsic risk of US equities.

 “Front-loading” is a process of distributing unevenly, with a greater proportion at the beginning of the process, and James Bullard thinks this should apply to rate hikes.

Gold futures traded to their highest value since April 2022 which led to selling pressure from traders taking profits. Gold traded to an intraday low today of $1906.20 before slightly recovering. As of 3:25 PM EST gold futures based on the most active February contract are currently fixed at $1912.70 after factoring in today’s decline of $9 or -0.47%.