This morning’s release of the minutes from last month’s FOMC meeting provided some upside momentum to move gold off this morning’s lows.

Ever since gold broke below $1,300, exactly a week ago today, pricing has remained in an extremely narrow and defined trading range. The relationship between the daily open and closing price has diminished to just a couple of dollars each day.

Gold closed fractionally higher after trading to the lowest price this year. Trading $10 lower and under pressure today, gold reached an intraday low of $1,281.20. The last time gold traded to $1,281 was December 22 of last year.