Gold is nearly intact ahead of Fed minutes

On Wednesday, gold was nearly intact in Asia due to the fact that traders waited for the minutes of the US major bank’s January meeting.

As a matter of fact, on the Comex exchange gold futures concluded the trading session at $1,345.55 per ounce.

Precious metals investors are currently waiting for new clues on the future path of the American monetary policy after last month the major US bank indicated that it could hold off lifting interest rates and cease the unwind of its balance sheet sooner than anticipated.

As market experts at Investing.com pointed out the US major financial institution excluded any rate lifts in 2019. Currently it’s believed in the market that the key US bank isn’t going to have its balance sheet shrunk more than it has. Moreover, it intends to keep it at quite elevated levels.

What’s more the Federal Reserve might even keep quantitative easing or, to put that another way, buying bonds with funds created out of thin air as a fresh means for monetary policy rather than an emergency measure.

The yellow metal managed to gain some support right after Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, who has a reputation of one of the fiercest hawks of the Federal Reserve told that she would underpin decelerating the balance sheet normalization process.

The dovish shift in stance pursued by the American key financial institution actually suggests a longer pause in rate lifts that in turn reduces the opportunity cost of keeping the non-interest bearing yellow metal.

China-US trade negotiations keep gaining attention against the backdrop of expectations that the world's two leading economics would be able to make an agreement to tackle their everlasting tariff clash.