Gold Steadies Around $1350, Fed's Policy Meeting Eyed

Gold was little changed early Monday, hovering around the $1,350 an ounce ahead of a fresh grind of macroeconomic data from the world's largest economy.

The precious metals markets eased on last week's modest gains in the final hours of trade in Asia, with the start of another hectic week for the U.S. economy, where traders are expecting first-tier releases including the September Industrial production gauge to the Federal Reserve`s October 29-30 policy meeting.

Spot Gold was nearly flat at $1.350.84 an ounce as of 02:16 ET, near the five-week high hit Thursday and little changed from Friday`s close at $1,350.62 in New York. Meanwhile, the trading range is between $1,348.77 and $1.354.13.

The U.S. calendar is busy as well with September consumer and producer prices, retail sales and October ISM manufacturing survey, but Today`s industrial production report will offer the first sneak peak at manufacturing shipments in September, a month where indications from private reports point to a solid monthly gain.

The industrial numbers, set to be out the 09:15 ET, were delayed to the partial shutdown of the Federal government. Although the Fed, which produced the industrial production report, is self funded, it still relies in part of Federal government data for its estimates of industrial production.

Expectations are still high for the Fed`s to continue stimulating the world`s largest economy with its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases, in the wake of lackluster reports out of the labor markets earlier last week, thus, markets junkies aren’t expecting any surprising shift in the U.S. monetary policy, at least until early next year.

The Federal Open Market Committee announcement at 02:00 p.m. ET for the Oct. 29-30 FOMC policy meeting is widely expected to leave policy rate unchanged at its record low of 0.50% and its quantitative easing program on hold in a bid to drive down borrowing costs to spur recovery, hurting the dollar in the process.

In a very tight range, the Dollar Index (USDIX) ticked up to 79.30 ahead of the Fed`s meeting tomorrow,. The dollar is expected to resume an intraday bearish trend, with support and resistance at 78.85 and 79.90, respectively.

As for yellow metal, gold maintains the bullish bias, settling above the 50-day SMA and at $1,350 horizontal resistance; holding above $1,350 should extend the bullish wave further, eyeing the main resistance at $1,370 level. However, the bullish scenario is favored this week, so long as $1,329 level is holding.