For a third consecutive week, it seems as though precious metals are going to be posting a loss. On the whole, this week was fairly busy, but things didn’t really begin to pick up until the last few days, when the FOMC meeting concluded and the Scottish referendum on independence took place. These two events both had their impacts on the marketplace, but as you can see, those impacts were mostly negative for precious metals.

On the geopolitical front there were multiple developments, but none of them had much of any impact on the marketplace. For this week, the eyes of the world were on US president Barack Obama and his military colleagues. After recently announcing that the US would be increasing the use of air power against ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq but not utilizing ground troops, some military advisers this week indicated that the use of ground troops is not out of the question quite yet. As has always been the case, it will be interesting to see how this situation develops as the US becomes more heavily involved in the fighting.

FOMC Holds Rates Steady, Market Reacts

The biggest economic event taking place this week came over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday in the form of the Federal Open Market Committee’s monthly policy meeting. Because there is so much talk of the US raising their key interest rate sometime in the near future, the eyes of the investing world were readily fixated on this week’s meeting.

Everyone was expecting to hear more information regarding the possible upcoming interest rate hike, but such proved to not be the case by the time the meeting concluded on Wednesday afternoon. When the dust finally settled, the FOMC announced that they would retain current interest rate levels for “considerable time” yet. This language eased the concerns of equity investors as US equity markets shot upward (and are continuing to do so today).

On the flip-side, the relatively uneventful FOMC meeting also came to the aid of the US Dollar simply because it is known that interest rates will be raised at some point in the future–how far into the future, however, remains up for debate. Now, just about two days after the meeting, it is clear to see that precious metals were the big losers as a result of the FOMC’s latest conversations.

Scotland Stays

In other news, the Scottish referendum on independence took place on Thursday and appears to have resulted in Scotland’s remaining part of the UK. As the weekend approaches, I am sure we will hear just a bit more information about the final results of the vote and just how close the numbers were.