Market sentiment continues to underwrite moderate to strong price advances in both gold and silver. Both precious metals are benefiting from a financial environment favoring risk-off assets such as the safe-haven properties of gold and, to a lesser extent, silver.

In terms of point gains today the Dow Jones Industrial Average had its greatest one-day market move in history. This move also took the record for the most significant daily percentage gain since March 2009.

Even with gold prices lower today, my belief is that we will see prices advance towards the end of the year, which will be followed by very respectable gains in 2019. After surging more than $20 yesterday, gold futures basis the most active February contract is currently trading off by approximately $9.30 and fixed at $1,258.60.

Today market participants witnessed a continuation of the tremendous selling pressure in U.S. equities, as well as a real and respectable surge in gold pricing. However, the vast majority of today’s selling pressure in U.S. equities was related to yesterday’s announcement by the Federal Reserve in which they raised interest rates for the fourth time this year.

The final FOMC meeting for this year has concluded. As was widely expected, the Fed announced that they would implement one more rate hike this year of 25 basis points. That is precisely what was announced at the conclusion of today’s meeting.

In just under 24 hours, the Federal Reserve will reveal its monetary policy decision for this month. We will also be given an indication of their plans for next year. While it is widely accepted that the likelihood of a fourth interest rate hike this year is high, analysts also believe Fed members will convey a much more dovish demeanor in terms of the rate hikes initiated in 2019.

If today is any indication of what is in store over the final two weeks of 2018, we could be in for some real volatility. U.S. stocks once again came under tremendous pressure with over 2% losses in all major indices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.11% in trading today as it declined by 507 points and closed at 23,592.98.

Concerns that there is an economic slowdown put pressure on the equities markets overseas, which carried over into the U.S. markets today.

It is Thursday, 5:00 PM Eastern standard time, and in just five days and 21 hours, the Federal Reserve will begin its final FOMC meeting for the year.

When the votes were tallied, Theresa May received 200 of the possible 370 allowing her to win the vote of confidence-no-confidence held by the conservative party today. This confidence vote will allow her to continue her work in creating and implementing an exit strategy for Britain to leave the European Union, commonly referred to as Brexit.