Silver Spot Price Edges Higher ahead of Fed Meeting

LONDON (Sept 17)  The silver spot price today edged up with investors focused on the upcoming two-day policy-setting meeting of the US Federal Reserve.

Markets expect the Fed's Open Market Committee, which begins its meeting later on Tuesday, to announce that it will trim by $10 billion its bond purchases, currently running at $85 billion a month. Gains in the silver price were helped by speculation that Fed policy makers will be less inclined to make a deeper cut in stimulus after former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers withdrew his bid to head the Federal Reserve.

Summers’ pullout has fuelled bets that the Fed will be slower to reduce its quantitative easing programme, which today sent the dollar near to its lowest level against the euro in almost three weeks, spurring demand for alternative investment.