After a wild few days of trading, the Federal Open Market Committee minutes yesterday didn’t really provide any additional shocks to rattle the markets.  The FOMC expects inflation to rise, unemployment to fall, and the economy’s equilibrium real interest rate to move higher for the next few years.  The plan is to still raise the federal funds rate but the overall tone of the meeting had a slightly dovish bias.  There is concern among several members that Chinese equity liquidation as well as issues surrounding Greece may ultimately adversely affect the US.

The International Monetary Fund lowered its global growth outlook for the remainder of 2015 to 3.30% from 3.50%.  This helped gold rally earlier today but the yellow metal was unable to hang onto its gains as the session wore on.  Sizable bids lifted gold from its lows under $1,150 on Tuesday and yesterday and this is now an increasingly important support level.  Silver has staged an impressive comeback after losing over 7% and falling under $15 on Tuesday.  Physical demand in the US for coins and bars remains robust and should help buoy silver in the near term.