Alex Bobrov
The Fed Res left the key interest rate unchanged. Ben Bernanke slightly improved the forecast for the US economic growth amid growing employment, retail sales and production. His commentaries left almost no hope for QE3 in the near future even though the FRS will preserve this useful tool in its arsenal. The next FOMC meeting is scheduled for April.
The US, EU and Japan filed an official complaint to the WTO over the restrictions on the export of rear-earth metals from China. Wen Jiabao, Prime minister of China, assures that China will accelerate its economic reforms and will give more freedom to its national currency.
Europe’s economic sentiment index came out better than expected, which was a surprise. Consumer prices are growing according to the forecast. According to the ECB President, the imbalance between the competitiveness of various eurozone countries keeps growing. This imbalance should be eliminated at the expense of coordinated structural reforms. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to preserve the integrity of the eurozone.
According to the Commodity Trading department of , if the price of gold consolidates above 1681, it may well resume the rally up to 1695, and probably 1699-1700. After that, a rebound is highly probable. Once the attempt fails, the downswing will probably reach 1657, 1640.
As for silver, it keeps retracing down to 33.0, 32. 75, 32.5, 32.25. An upswing with consolidating above 33.6 will trigger the bullish scenario with targets around 34, 34.25.
Alex Bobrov
