美联储明天午后将公布议息会议结果，市场普遍预期会维持现有政策不变，即每月削减资产购买100亿。这对黄金价格的影响会比前次会议要小。但是如果出现出人意料的结果，也可能会对金价产生重大影响。由于近期经济数据没有明显变化，下次FOMC会议可能会更重要一些。唯一的变数是对俄罗斯的经济制裁是否会影响美国经济。以下是一些背景介绍。
From Forbes 2014/4/29
(Kitco News) – The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee is expected to largely stand pat when a two-day policy meeting wraps up on Wednesday.
If so, this could mean a limited reaction for prices of gold and other precious metals, at least compared to past meetings, analysts said. That would mean the metal mainly could make a big move if there were some sort of major surprise.
Central bankers begin a two-day meeting on Tuesday and conclude Wednesday, with a post-meeting statement scheduled for release at 2 p.m. EDT.
“They are probably going to stay the course,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst with Price Futures Group.
After a meeting wound up last month, the Fed scaled back the bond-buying program known as quantitative easing by another $10 billion, as expected. Members’ forecasts for the future of short-term interest rates were seen as more hawkish than anticipated, however, as was a comment from Fed Chair Janet Yellen at a press conference in which she suggested rates could start rising six months after the end of QE.
Since, however, Fed commentary has been deemed more dovish than initially thought after the last FOMC meeting, with Yellen characterizing the labor market as still soft. Also, minutes from the last meeting, released earlier this month, showed policy-makers feared that their collective interest-rate forecasts might overstate the pace at which eventual tightening likely would occur, assuming the economy recovers sufficiently.
“I don’t look for much (new) to happen at this meeting,” said Frank Lesh, broker and futures analyst with FuturePath Trading.
Economists and market participants look for the $10 billion-per-meeting tapering to continue.
“Communications from the FOMC suggest that asset purchases are on track to step down in a steady way between now and the end of the year unless there is some drastic change in activity and/or the outlook,” said a research note from Nomura’s economic team.
Most observers do not expect any major changes to the Fed statement or forward guidance.
Brown Brothers Harriman said the Fed meeting likely will be a “non-event,” with markets anticipating that the first hike in short-term rates likely is still more than a year away. Markets anticipate one of the few changes to the Fed statement might be that the U.S. economy has picked up after a slow start to the year, Lesh and BBH said.
“But it’s not enough to change or alter the course of the Fed at the moment,” Lesh said.
Added BBH: “The next FOMC meeting … will be more important than this week’s meeting, which may be as close to a non-event as these things can be. Forecasts will be updated, and Yellen will hold a press conference in June.”
Investor and newsletter writer Dennis Gartman said he suspects the Fed’s statement will be a “nearly perfect replaying” of the post-meeting communiqué from last month. He said there has been nothing in U.S. economic data since the last meeting to “slow or to speed up” the Fed on its path toward no more QE by year-end and he looks for the vote on the statement to be nearly unanimous, although Gartman added that “it is clear that buried within the committee are deep-seated disagreements on the policy.”
Added Nomura: “We do not expect the FOMC to make any further changes to its forward guidance after dropping the unemployment rate threshold and enhancing guidance last month. We doubt there will be any major surprises at this FOMC meeting as Yellen, in recent speeches, has suggested that the general framework for policy is set, and as of now there doesn’t seem to be any outstanding issues with regards to the basic structure of policy.”
An as-expected Fed is likely to mean a more subdued gold reaction to the statement, Lesh said.
“I believe the markets are all starting to accept the fact that the Fed wants to cease their (QE) stimulus,” he said. “I believe they’re going to get out of the stimulus business and see how the economy stands on its own without the unnatural Fed influence.
“I don’t really look at it (the Fed meeting) as a big event. I think the employment data (for April due out on Friday) probably carries more weight this week than the Fed meeting. But who knows, they could always say something away from expectations.”
Flynn said while this would be a surprise, one potential upside risk for the gold market would be if the statement should somehow acknowledge the potential for the geopolitical tensions surrounding the Ukrainian situation to translate to a softer economy, especially as a result of trade sanctions against Russia. If so, this might support gold since it would be seen as a harbinger of possibly more monetary accommodation than the market currently expects, Flynn said.
“But other than that, the economic data has been a little bit mixed, but the stock markethas been doing very, very well. So unless things really heat up with the Ukraine, we’re probably not going to get a lot out of this meeting at all. But the risk is if we have even more sanctions on Russia down the road that are a little bit more aggressive, whether or not the Fed would acknowledge that they are there to provide cover in the event that things get out of hand.”
He later added, “If the Fed meeting were today, I don’t think that would be the issue. But if things take a turn for the worse and heat up in Ukraine, the Fed may have to acknowledge that risk exists.”
By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; 该Email地址已收到反垃圾邮件插件保护。要显示它您需要在浏览器中启用JavaScript。