Precious metals were on the rise today after the Federal Open Market Committee released minutes of its latest monetary policy meeting. The minutes revealed that many policy makers believed that under the current economic conditions the central bank should wait longer before tightening monetary policy. Additionally, many members of the FOMC thought that the wording about ‘patience’ should be kept in the statement, otherwise markets may react excessively and in an undesired fashion.
All in all, the minutes were rather dovish, and this is negative for the US dollar. Precious metals often move inversely to the US currency, meaning that the weakness of the greenback is beneficial for them.
There was another supportive factor for safe assets (like precious metals) in the form of the
April futures for gold gained 1.18 percent to $1,214.40 per troy ounce as of 1:20 GMT on COMEX today. March silver advanced as much as 2.09 percent to $16.61 per ounce. Spot prices for platinum increased 0.51 percent to $1,180.63 per ounce while palladium added 0.21 percent to its value, trading at $779.50 per ounce.
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