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Some analysts expected gold to drop sharply when the dollar rose following the latest Fed meeting. However, while the yellow metal did fall, it wasn’t an unmanageable decline.
On Friday, gold fell 0.1 percent, hitting $1,196.60 per ounce, according to Reuters. The yellow metal is heading for a weekly loss of 2 percent.
The dollar, which improved after the most recent US Federal Reserve meeting, is bringing gold down, but not as much as some expected. “It was surprising to see that gold didn’t fall sharply after the Fed’s meeting, given the strength in the dollar,” Commerzbank (ETR:CBK) analyst Carsten Fritsch told Reuters.
By contrast, silver rose 0.8 percent on Friday to trade at $15.95 per ounce. That said, it’s still set to record its first weekly decline in December.
Copper also rose, increasing by 1.28 percent to hit $6,396 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, another Reuters article states.
“We’re getting bargain hunting and short covering as we approach year end,” William Adams, head of research at FastMarkets, told the news outlet. “Investors are taking advantage of weaker prices. Definitely the rally in global equities would be supportive. Weaker oil prices will (still) weigh on metals but it doesn’t run in a straight line and we’ve become oversold in the short term.”
Meanwhile, COMEX copper for March delivery rose 1.24 percent to trade at $2.89 per pound, as per Binary Tribune, with prices down 1.5 percent for the week.
Finally, Reuters said that Brent crude oil for February delivery, which has been having a tough time lately, rose $1.43, to $60.70 per barrel. Scotiabank’s Patricia Mohr encouraged market participants earlier this week by suggesting that better times are coming in 2015.
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Patricia Mohr Stays Positive on Oil, Expects Rise in Early 2015