At 11:26 a.m. today, I received an email from a well-known market guru who is an expert at technical analysis. The email declared that the pattern in gold was like a coil ready to start a new rally.
At 2:00 p.m. the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) released the minutes of the Committee meeting held on March 13, 2012. In response to the minutes, gold fell about $35, with silver, oil, bonds and stocks all falling as well. As of this writing, the SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD -1.29% is down $3.25, iShares Silver Trust ETF SLV -3.01% is down $0.40, the United States Oil Fund ETF USO -1.38% is down $0.38, and the iShares Trust Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund ETF TLT +1.00% is down $1.61, S&P 500 ETFSPY -0.98% is down $0.96. The PowerShares QQQ Trust Series 1 ETF QQQ -1.24% is down $0.26 also. The U.S. dollar rose; PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund ETF UUP +0.47% is up $0.17.
The market reaction indicates that a large number of market participants were expecting QE3. Their hopes were dashed by hawkish minutes from the Fed.
To anyone who has been paying attention to the economic data as it is being released over the last few months, the Fed minutes should have not been a surprise.
It basically regurgitated what is already known.
The following excerpt from the FOMC minutes are worth reading:
‘”Private nonfarm employment rose at an appreciably faster average pace in January and February than in the fourth quarter of last year, and declines in total government employment slowed in recent months. The unemployment rate decreased to 8.3% in January and stayed at that level in February….Read more on MarketWatch