Market Snapshot – Markets Wait In Anticipation of FOMC

Dollar Continues Recovery On FOMC Anticipation

The focus today will be on the FOMC meeting minutes that are scheduled to be released later in the evening. The market would be keen to watch the tone of the minutes and would also like to see what each member thinks about the US economy. The economic data from the US, of late, has not been very good and though the Fed had ignored the data and went ahead with the hike, the markets have not been so forgiving and have taken down the dollar since then. But during the course of this week, we have seen the dollar recover in anticipation of some hawkishness from the FOMC and the data (due later in the week) and it remains to be seen whether this would come true.

Gold Prices Slump under Dollar Pressure

Gold prices continue to remain under pressure in anticipation of the FOMC minutes later in the day which the market expects to be hawkish for the dollar. The markets always tend to overrun the actuals and that is why we are seeing this dollar recovery in the hope of something good from the Fed members. We also have a burst of economic data from the US in the last 2 days of the week that includes the NFP and this is likely to be supportive of the dollar. This has caused the gold prices to revisit its support at 1220 during the course of the day and this is likely to continue atleast until the FOMC minutes are released and this will then give us the next direction for gold and the dollar as well.