Gold

Let's go directly to what the Chairwoman of the Fed said:

The second of a one-two punch today - the drop in weekly jobless claims - was all that gold could take. It's off today over 1%.

Other people may be taking the ALS fund-raising ice-water bath challenge, but gold bulls got plenty of cold water dumped on them.

Fastening their claws onto one short phrase of the Fed in the FOMC minutes released today, some traders read it as a sign that interest rate hikes will arrive sooner rather than later.

The phrase was:

Gold is still hewing tightly to its range, buffeted by contradictory economic trends born of the uneven, yet persistent U.S. recovery. In fact, it can be safely said that, given the economic troubles in Europe and the credit crunch in China, the U.S. is carrying the world recovery on its back.
 

Gold has been mired in a range, or two sets of ranges recently. But, the strength the yellow metal is showing in the face of lowered world tensions and in the face of renewed risk appetite for equities is quite impressive.

What are the reasons behind both the range-bound nature of the market and gold's resilience? The two seem at odds with each other at first glance.