Gold Drops Most Since April 15th

Investor jitters about a policy statement from the US Federal Reserve dragged down gold today, along with a basket of other industrial and precious metals.

Gold fell mid-session by 2.2 percent to $1,444.36 an ounce, before paring back losses to a 1 percent decline at the close, or $1,456 on the spot market. Gold futures ended the day down $17.10 at $1,455 an ounce.

The reverberations of gold’s “Black Monday”, on April 15th, were in place today due to an anticipated report from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a branch of the US Federal Reserve. Reuters reported that investors sold off a range of commodities led by crude oil and copper, which lost 3.4 percent on the LME, hitting $6,812.75 per tonne.

However, in the end the FOMC report, the conclusion of a two-day meeting, made no mention of a timeframe on ending the central bank’s quantitative easing program, which has been a boon for gold and other precious metals. That kept gold’s losses to a minimum.

Up to today’s retreat, gold has recovered half of its April 15th losses, when the metal plunged 8.5%,  due mostly to physical buyers moving in to snap up the metal at discounted prices.