Gold News & Info

Source: Marketwatch

New York— Gold futures were higher at the official close Tuesday, but they dipped in electronic trading after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 75 basis points, falling short of market expectations for a full point cut. Gold for April delivery rose $1.70, or 0.2%, to end at $1,002.60 an ounce. But it last traded down $14.30, or 1.4%, to $989.90 an ounce in electronic trade.

Stopping short of giving the market everything it wanted, the Fed cut a key interest rate by three quarters of one percentage point on Tuesday. "The Fed does not want to be put in the position where they continually have to satisfy the markets," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon. Cutting rate aggressively to boost the economy is also expected to lift inflation down the line, which boosts gold, seen as an inflation hedge. But the less-than-expected cut curbed some of these inflation concerns. See full story.