The first FOMC meeting in 2021 has concluded without any changes in monetary policy, while Powell sent a few dovish signals during his press conference.
The FOMC released on Wednesday (January 27) its newest statement on monetary policy. Generally speaking, the statement was little changed. The main alteration is that the U.S. central bank has acknowledged that “the pace of the recovery in economic activity and employment has moderated in recent months”. Wow, how did they notice that? They really must hire professionals! All jokes aside, this modification in the FOMC statement is dovish. Consequently, when analyzed separately, it’s positive for the price of gold.
Figure 1 - USD Index
In yesterday’s (Jan. 19) analysis , I commented on the above USD Index chart in the following way:
The USD Index is after a major breakout above the declining resistance lines and this breakout was confirmed. Consequently, the USD Index is likely to rally, but is it likely to rally
shortly?
The answer to this question is being clarified at the moment of writing these words, because the USD Index moved back to its rising short-term support line that’s based on the 2021 bottoms.
If the USD Index breaks below it, traders will view the 2021 rally as a zigzag corrective pattern and will probably sell the U.S. currency, causing it to decline, perhaps to the mid-January low or even triggering a re-test of the 2021 low.
Do you want to know how gold will be doing soon? Or the USDX? You have to look at the German and French economies. You may ask “What? How can they be tied together?” Well, the globalization of markets is one of the core foundations of the modern world. With everything interrelated, nothing in economics can be examined in a vacuum state. That includes the three precious metals price drivers: stocks, yields and currencies.
The EUR/USD currency pair is a perfect example of this interconnectivity. Being the most popular and most traded currency pair in the world, the EUR/USD is influenced by many factors, including the price action in the USD Index as well as the strength of the European and American economies at any given time. The same level of interconnectedness can be applied to the other price drivers.
The thing that most likely raised quite a few eyebrows this week was – in addition to gold’s recent move by itself – the fact that gold rallied mostly without the dollar’s help. Yesterday (Jan. 5) I wrote that one swallow doesn’t make a summer and that a single session rarely changes much.
We didn’t have to wait for long – the situation seems to be getting back to normal.
Figure 1 - COMEX Gold Futures
After the January 4th rally, gold moved only insignificantly higher, and it’s even a bit lower in today’s pre-market trading.
Figure 2 - USD Index