Precious metals back to status quo after Fed surprise

Summary: Last Wednesday, gold shot up over 4% following a surprise announcement from the Federal Reserve that it would NOT taper its current stimulus efforts. By week’s end though, sentiment had shifted – “Fed fever has broken” one floor trader explained to CNBC. An analysis from Citi explains that stimulus tapering will eventually occur, and that the Fed’s announcement gave metals a slight reprieve. It goes on to explain that once tapering begins at the end of this year and into next, we could see gold fall even further. In the short-term though, competing influences between QE tapering and the U.S. debt-ceiling talks will make the gold markets pretty choppy. Read more…